Valerii Ye. Boniakivskyi (Kabul)

Valeriy Yevhenovych Bonyakivskyi was born and raised in Poltava, in a house located near a military airfield. Perhaps that is why he dreamed of aviation from childhood, aspiring to conquer the skies. His second passion was painting — the boy graduated with honors from art school, completing its 4-year course in three years. In addition, he was involved in sports: judo, freestyle wrestling, swimming. At the end of the war in Afghanistan, Valeriy submitted documents to one of the flight military schools, but, as he told his mother, Maria Karpivna Bonyakivska, he completed an accelerated training course for attack pilots, mastering the Su-25 aircraft. When the war in Afghanistan ended, he was discharged into the reserve with the military rank of lieutenant. However, some details from his stories suggest that Valeriy served in a special forces unit of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, stationed in Chechnya. He was a member of the Poltava regional organization of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine. Among the Poltava artists, he was known by the humorous nickname Colonel. Valeriy's paintings were repeatedly exhibited at solo exhibitions (in particular, at the Poltava Art Museum named after M. Yaroshenko), many of which are now kept in art collections in Ukraine and abroad. In addition, he was passionate about collecting cold weapons. According to his mother, Valeriy always kept away from all kinds of politics, but with the onset of Russian aggression, he did not leave the television and eventually could not stand it… He applied to the military enlistment office twice. Not waiting for a call, he joined the fighters of the Volunteer Ukrainian Corps "Right Sector" and went to the East, explaining to his mother: "I have three daughters, a grandson — I have someone to protect…". Later, without leaving the front in Donetsk region, he joined one of the units of the BPSMOP "Dnipro-1" (with the rank of police sergeant). Valeriy did not have time to undergo re-certification and receive an officer's special rank: on October 16, near Donetsk, while performing a combat mission together with scouts from the 93rd separate mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valeriy was mortally wounded as a result of enemy artillery shelling. Legends are still told about him, the fighter with the call sign Kabul: that in his unit there were no killed, about how he destroyed an enemy reconnaissance group by mining its retreat path, about how Valeriy and a group of comrades captured a checkpoint, disarming the separatist militants without a single shot. He also promised his combat friends to paint their portraits after the victory… At the memorial service for the fallen hero, which took place in the Holy Assumption Cathedral, hundreds of Poltava residents gathered, many of whom did not know Valeriy personally. Instead of his photograph, an artist's self-portrait was displayed in the temple, in which he depicted himself in a flight helmet. And when comrades carried the coffin with his body out of the cathedral, most people knelt down, honoring the memory of the brave fellow countryman in this way. Valeriy was buried in the Alley of Heroes at the Bozhenkivske cemetery, next to the graves of fellow countrymen who died during the ATO. Several of Valeriy's works — portraits, landscapes, still lifes — were later presented at posthumous exhibitions organized by his friends in the art salons of Poltava and Dnipro.