“On the night of February 23 to 24, my husband rushed to duty at the command ‘Alert!’. Early in the morning, around five o’clock, he called me: ‘Olya, they’re shooting!’ I quickly woke up our daughter, and at just four years old, she asked: ‘Mom, has the war started? Will they kill daddy?’ I honestly answered that I didn’t know…
On February 24, my husband flew over both the Kherson and our native Mykolaiv regions. In the evening, he called again and said: ‘Get some rest — tomorrow will be a very hard day for you. Besides, we hit them so well, we definitely delayed them for the whole night. You can sleep peacefully…’ Who could have thought that would be our last conversation.
In the morning of February 25, my husband destroyed a convoy near Hostomel and flew again to carry out missions over the Kyiv region… My hope that everything was fine, that he just couldn’t call, was shattered by a message from a woman living in one of the villages in the Vyshhorod district. She found me through social media and asked: ‘Are you by any chance the wife of Hennadiy Matulyak?’ Then came a photo of his passport.
Local residents told me what exactly happened in the skies over the Vyshhorod district, where my husband died. It happened around seven in the morning. There was an air battle, and a Russian fighter jet struck Hennadiy’s aircraft — he was the lead pilot. My husband tried to steer the plane away to protect the village, as there was a large entertainment complex located below. He even managed to pull the ejection handle — and then… a second hit, which left no chance. The plane and the pilot burst into flames.
Locals saw with their own eyes how the aircraft was flying straight toward them — and how the pilot was saving hundreds of lives. The plane crashed a few kilometers from the settlement, in a forested area. Just fifteen minutes later, people ran to the crash site. Honestly, it was very important for me to hear the truth — to know that this was not just a legend, that my Hero really did save so many lives…
But the greatest horror was still ahead… I had to identify the body — burned and lying in the ground for 40 days without a coffin. Forensic experts made incisions, cut out muscles, and placed my husband’s cold bones into my hands…
Our son, Ruslan, learned about his father’s death from the presidential decree awarding him the title of Hero. I explained to our daughter that daddy is still protecting us — we just had to give him to God so he could become an Angel. It was little Sofiika who received her father’s award…”
(c) Olha Matulyak
HENNADIY MATULYAK
Lieutenant Colonel, Commander of the Aviation Squadron of the 299th Tactical Aviation Brigade.
Hero of Ukraine (posthumously).
Killed on February 25, 2022, near the village of Hlibivka in the Kyiv region.
Forever 44.
We remember.
