A two-month-old infant boy was taken to his father’s grave after the gallant pilot was killed on a combat mission, symbolizing the heartbreaking impact of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Serhiy Parkhomenko, a pilot captain from the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia, was killed in action in the Zaporizhzhia area of eastern Ukraine.
A man presumed to be Parkhomenko’s father took his two-month-old kid to his father’s burial in Vinnytsia, unaware that his father would never return.
A heartbreaking photograph shows the baby, wearing a small babygrow and blue hat, being lifted up next to a portrait of his father who he will never meet.
Dozens of Parkhomenko’s relatives and Ukrainian soldiers attended the funeral and laid red and white roses on his coffin, which was draped in the national blue and yellow flag.
Before the funeral service, two Ukrainian Su-27 fighter jets on combat duty in the region, roared over the community centre to pay tribute to their fallen comrade.
Commander of the Air Force Forces of Ukraine Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk said during the funeral that Parkhomenko died ‘heroically’ on May 14.
‘Together with his comrades, he developed new approaches in the tactics of aviation in modern warfare. He was the soul of the aviation unit, the commander-leader, who led his unit into battle,’ Oleshchuk said.
Parkhomenko was posthumously awarded the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky for his exceptional dury in defence of state sovereignty and state security during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to Army Inform, an agency of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine.
Speaking directly to the relatives of Parkhomenko, Oleshchuk said: ‘I personally express my deepest condolences on the heavy and irreparable loss.
‘The memory of the courageous officer, a true patriot of his country, Captain Serhiy Parkhomenko, who consciously chose the honorable way of defending the Motherland in difficult times for Ukraine, will forever remain in our hearts.
‘Eternal glory to the fallen Heroes. Glory to Ukraine.’
Parkhomenko, who was born in the city of Kharkiv to a family of military aviators, had dreamed of being a pilot since a young age.
At the time when his father was performing combat missions in the air in 2014, Parkhomenko entered the flight faculty of the Ivan Kozhedub Kharkiv National University of the Air Force. He graduated as a pilot in 2019.
During his time in the air force, Parkhomenko made 38 combat sorties in difficult conditions against enemy air defense and fighter aircraft, during which he destroyed more than 20 enemy tanks, more than 50 armored combat vehicles, 55 vehicles, 20 fuel tanks and several hundred soldiers, according the ministry of defence.