To mark the Cynological Service Day of Ukraine, the War Museum hosted a meeting with Kateryna Bieliaieva, an inspector from the Cynology Center of the Main Directorate of the National Police in the Kyiv Region, along with her service dogs.
Kateryna Bieliaieva is a lawyer by training and spent nearly a decade working in legal journalism. During a candid conversation with the event’s moderator, Larysa Osadcha, she shared how she joined the cynology service. According to Kateryna, while on a professional assignment to prepare a report about the Cynology Center of the National Police in the Kyiv Region, she met a service dog named Wanda—a meeting that changed her life. She decided to become a police cynologist, subsequently graduating from the Zhytomyr Police Academy, passing the competitive selection for cynologists, and joining the team of specialists at the National Police in the Kyiv Region.
Today, Kateryna’s professional team includes not only Wanda but also Bentley, Ares, Polia, Knopa, Asia, and other “furry brothers-in-arms,” as the military affectionately calls them. These service dogs do more than just detect weapons and prohibited substances, assist in exposing and apprehending offenders, or search for missing persons; they are also actively involved in canine-assisted therapy, which has become a vital component of a cynologist’s work.
During the full-scale russian invasion, Kateryna Bieliaieva, along with her trainees and other service dogs, has conducted over a thousand visits to military hospitals and rehabilitation centers. Her “furry professionals” have provided emotional support to hundreds of our severely wounded defenders. “No one could remain indifferent after interacting with these four-legged assistants. They bring positivity to everyone, facilitate psychological and physical recovery, and restore the will to live,” Kateryna shared. Her story was complemented by a touching video from a military hospital, showing her team of service dogs helping our defenders emotionally recover.
During one of these visits to military hospitals, the specialist met students from the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture. In a sign of respect for the cynologist’s contribution to the recovery of our defenders, Ukrainian artists painted two portraits of Kateryna with her pets.
At the conclusion of the event, Kateryna donated items related to the activities of the Cynology Service of Ukraine during the current russo-Ukrainian War to the Museum’s permanent collection. These included her self-authored book, “Polia the Red Dog: Ukraine’s First Police Emotional Support Dog”, cynology patches, a harness used by the service dog Bentley, and a painted souvenir shell casing.
The War Museum sincerely thanks Kateryna Bieliaieva for this meeting and for her significant contribution to the rehabilitation of our defenders, as well as the students of the Faculty of Psychology at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv for their participation in the event.
