The former coach of Dynamo Kyiv has died

At the age of 85, on the night of January 27, Russian football coach Borys Ignatyev, who in 2009-2012 was Yuri Semin’s assistant at Dynamo Kyiv, died.

As a midfielder, Ignatiev played for Zenit (Izhevsk), Rocket (Sormovo), Volga (Gorky), Dynamo (Makhachkala), Meteor (Zhukovsky), Dynamo (Tselinograd) and Stroitel (Ufa).

His coaching career included the youth national team of the USSR, the national team of the UAE, the Olympic teams of Iraq and the USSR, the youth national teams of the CIS and Russia, the Saudi “Al-Ittihad”, the Chinese “Shandong Lunen”, the Katsap “Torpedo-ZIL”, “Saturn”, “Torpedo”, the Russian national team.

Under the leadership of Ignatiev, the youth team of the USSR won the European Championship in 1988.

In 2009-2012, Ignatiev worked as an assistant to Yury Semin in Kyiv “Dynamo” with a short break. Under the leadership of this coaching staff, the Kyiv team won the championship and reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup in the 2008/09 season.

Unlike Semin and Gazzaev, Boris Petrovych never openly supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The maximum he said on this matter was that he hoped that Russia would be admitted to international competitions.

“I thought that football was by itself, and politics was separate. But it turned out not to be like that, politicians play football too,” he said with the naivety characteristic of katsaps.

Ignatiev also supported the holding of some “commonwealth championship”. This idea arose among patients with Katsapian headaches already during a full-scale war.

“Of course, unrecognized republics have an interest in holding such competitions. We also have it. After all, we turned out to be detached from big football due to certain circumstances. Therefore, any tournaments where you can perform and have the interest of fans are very important. I don’t know if FIFA and UEFA will allow us, if we can play in them,” Ignatiev reflected.

Russian military media write that in January 2026, Ignatiev spent more than two weeks in the hospital, where he was being treated for oncology. On January 26, Boris Petrovych’s condition deteriorated sharply: his blood pressure dropped, he stopped speaking and responding to the words of loved ones. An ambulance was called to him, but it did not help. Ignatiev passed away on the night of January 27.