On May 20, Kyiv's Dynamo won the Ukrainian Cup for the 2025/26 season at the Lviv Arena, defeating first-division Chernihiv with a score of 3:1. The match started with a delay — an air raid alert in Lviv postponed the opening whistle by 15 minutes.
How It Happened
Dynamo opened the scoring first: on the 26th minute, Mykhailo Buyalskyi gave the Kyiv team the lead. Chernihiv equalized eight minutes later — defender Romanchenko scored from a set piece. The teams went into halftime level at 1:1.
In the second half, Buyalskyi opened it with his own brace on the 53rd minute — a penalty into the corner following a combination attack. Andrii Yarmolenko, who came on as a substitute, put the final nail in the coffin: a shot into the far corner on the 70th minute made the score final.
"I joked with my father, asked: 'Who will you support?' He answered that for Chernihiv"
Andrii Yarmolenko
Chernihiv, Which Shouldn't Have Been in the Final
Chernihiv's path to the final is a separate story. The first-division team went through three penalty series: eliminating Lisne, Fenix-Mariupol, and Metalist 1925. Chernihiv reached the final as only the second first-division representative in the tournament's history. The team's coach Valerii Chornyi called it the "biggest hype around the club in its history".
What This Trophy Means
For Dynamo — it's the 20th final and the 14th won Ukrainian Cup. In terms of trophies in independent Ukraine, Kyiv's team matched Donetsk's Shakhtar. The practical consequence: Dynamo received a direct ticket to the Europa League next season — without qualifying rounds.
For interim head coach Ihor Kostyuk, who took charge of the team in 2025, this is his first trophy in his coaching career with Dynamo. He played for the club from 1992 to 1997.
The question that remains open: will one trophy and European cup prospects be enough for Kostyuk to receive the position of head coach without the "interim" prefix — and if Dynamo is eliminated in the Europa League qualifiers, will the club reconsider this decision?
