“Can we climb up here?” I ask in the tone of a six-year-old child near the wooden stairs hidden in the crown of a pear tree.

“Sure, climb up,” says our guide, biologist Volodymyr Buchko. Hidden in the branches, there is a platform and a table with a bench. 

“I drink coffee here in the evening and watch animals come out into the open. There’s a ram over there and a deer…”

From the terrace on the pear tree, you can see the hilly western Ukrainian steppe, the Burshtyn Reservoir, and scattered thickets where deer, mouflons, and other animals hide from the heat. Kasova Hora Ecosystem Conservation and Restoration Center is located near the city of Halych in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, where Daniel of Galicia is a Ukrainian historical figure and the king of Rus’ (from 1253). He is described as an exceptionally gifted ruler, who built a number of cities (including Lviv), reformed the military forces, and brought European cultural influences to Ukraine. Adapted from: Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine.Daniel of Galicia once lived. Volodymyr appears to have as much right to be proud as the king, for his long-held ambition has come true here: Ukraine’s largest ungulate rehabilitation center, where animals recover and restore the steppe.

“Just mow it”

There is no entrance fee, but there is a donation box and a charity account. Right at the entrance, fallow deer are resting in the shade. They spot us and jump up. As we ascend higher, the chimneys of the Burshtyn TPP is a coal-fired power plant located in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. Source: Wikipedia.Burshtyn TPP and the blue reservoir on the Hnyla Lypa River appear on the horizon.

The Gorgany Mountains stretch across the skyline. From Kasova Hora (hora means “mountain” in Ukrainian), you can see far into the distance. 

Where does the name Kasova come from? In Ukrainian, it means “cash register.” What could that possibly have to do with a mountain? Locals tell a story that Daniel of Galicia once hid his treasure in one of the many caves here. However, it is more likely that the name comes from the word kosovytsia (“haymaking”). And haymaking plays an important role here!

But even if the treasures are really here, there is also a more valuable and undiscovered treasure—a rare natural area.

Kasova Hora is the largest fragment of meadow steppe in the region. “This is the benchmark for the Western Ukrainian steppe. There are other areas like this one, but they are very small,” explains Volodymyr, confidently strolling through Kasova Hora in his Crocs. “The ecosystem here is very rich. There are 380 species of vascular plants, more than 30 of which are listed in the The Red Book of Ukraine is an official national red list of the threatened animals, plants and fungi that are protected by the law in Ukraine. Source: Wikipedia. Red Book of Ukraine.”

Vsevolod Levytskyi, a nature conservation specialist of Shevchenko Scientific Society is a Ukrainian scientific society devoted to the promotion of scholarly research and publication, founded in 1873. Source: Wikipedia.Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv, was the first to want to protect this steppe. In 1936, he wrote a letter to the Metropolitan of Galicia and the Archbishop of Lviv, Andrey Sheptytsky is a priest and theologian of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church who served as the Metropolitan of Galicia and the Archbishop of Lviv from 1901 until his death in 1944. Source: Wikipedia.Andrey Sheptytsky, asking him for the land of Kasova Hora, which at that time belonged to the church. Scientists and representatives of the Greek Catholic Church gathered at a conference and jointly decided to create a nature reserve on Kasova Hora. However, World War II thwarted these plans. During the Soviet era, a nature reserve was created here after all. Initially, 7 hectares were protected, and since 1988, 65 hectares have been protected.

In other areas, people mowed hay. However, where the deer now graze, sheep were kept until the 1990s. Plowing was impossible here, as limestone and gypsum come to the surface, so a plow cannot pass. This is what saved this piece of the steppe from destruction.

In 2019, renowned botanist Yakiv Didukh visited Kasova Hora, Volodymyr recounts. He did not recognize it. The steppe had become extremely overgrown, leading to thickets and invasive species. Soon there would be nothing of value left in terms of nature conservation.

“I said we would preserve it,” recalls Volodymyr. “And Yakiv replied, ‘Take a scythe and just mow it.’” It was impossible to mow so much. That’s when I came up with the idea of creating a rehabilitation center for ungulates.

“So that they could graze and take care of the area?”

“Exactly!”

Teeth and horns vs. thickets

By eating trees and shrubs, ungulates preserve the steppe. Otherwise, the area becomes overgrown. Then, valuable species disappear, replaced by invasive species that are not characteristic of the steppe.

Volodymyr’s idea to bring ungulates to Kasova Hora was supported by IFAW, which financed the initial costs. Scientists organized an expedition there. Together, they created a project on how to manage the territory. In 2023, the Burshtyn City Council supported the project and leased the land to Volodymyr Buchko for 20 years so that the plan could be implemented under his leadership.

The restoration of an ecosystem to its original state is called rewilding. At Kasova Hora, this process was carried out by ungulates, or rather their teeth. Kasova Hora is a two-in-one project: the rehabilitation of ungulates that had previously lived in unsuitable conditions and the restoration of the steppe.

In addition, species that previously lived in Podillia is a historic region in Eastern Europe located in the west-central and southwestern parts of Ukraine and northeastern Moldova. Source: Wikipedia. Podillia are being returned to the wild here. This is a reintroduction.

Volodymyr, his wife—botanist Lesia Buchko— and one hired staff member work on the wide terrain. Volodymyr is presently serving in the military, thus he can only visit the reserve while on leave. It would be difficult to function without volunteers.

“UAnimals coordinates volunteers for us. And now I’ll show you how they’ve helped us!”

Volodymyr leads us to an area where cut bushes and trees are visible. This area has been cleared. Most of the branches and logs were removed by the volunteers. There are three such areas at Kasova Hora. Botanists have taken notes on them and will now monitor how the steppe gets restored in these places.

Volodymyr crouches down next to a gnawed sapling. “This tree has dried up, and that’s a good thing. Male European roe deer rubbed their antlers against it and stripped off all the bark. That’s why the tree died. We allow individual trees to grow, but if there are too many of them, the steppe becomes overgrown. If you cut down a tree, the undergrowth remains and continues to grow. But here, everything has been gnawed away, so it won’t grow anymore. In other words, roe deer regulate the ecosystem.”

Peter, Vasyl, and who else?

There is a roe deer in a small quarantine enclosure. However, this animal has not yet started working on the ecosystem. He looks like a small goat and runs to a bottle of milk to suck eagerly. “This is little Peter. He was found on Peter and Paul Day, so that’s what we named him,” says Lesia.

There are eleven roe deer at Kasova Hora. They were handed over from private keeping. “They all have the same story,” Volodymyr complains. “People come to the forest, see a baby roe deer, and take it home. The deer grows up and starts eating everything. And then we are asked to take it away, as soon as possible. No matter how much you explain that you can’t take babies from the forest, people still can’t resist doing it!”

In the neighboring enclosure, Vasyl, a deer from Boryspil, was also brought from private keeping. Right now, the deer is resting in the shade.

“Why is he in quarantine?” I ask.

“He got into a fight with another deer. We’ll release him soon. He’s actually phlegmatic and tame. When he was brought, he just stood there and didn’t want to leave the cage. To get him to walk out, you had to push him from behind. He’s terrified of machinery. Maybe he was in some kind of accident.”

The rest of the animals roam Kasova Hora wherever they want. However, the area itself is limited, covering just 23 hectares. This is how much land Volodymyr has been able to fence off so far. The ungulates live here in conditions close to their natural ones. They hide from people, and it is not so easy to see the animals.

“Kids come here and say, ‘We want to see the animals,’” shares Volodymyr. “I always tell them that this isn’t a zoo. Wild animals live their own lives, but you can walk around and look for them. Maybe you’ll find them, but no one can guarantee you that. It’s a kind of quest in itself.’”

The ungulates to the foreground  

I love quests, so we continue on our way. Ahead, a reddish, curious head peeks out from the grass. It is a female Przewalski’s horse.

She was the first resident of the center and settled here with the help of UAnimals. She used to live in the former hunting residence of Ukraine’s ex-president, Viktor Yanukovych is the fourth president of Ukraine, from 2010 to 2014. Yanukovych was removed from the presidency during the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, which followed months of protests against him. Since then, he has lived in exile in russia. Source: Wikipedia.Viktor Yanukovych. There is now a recreation park there. 

The animal had a fiery temper, so in the spring of 2022, the staff decided to put her down. Concerned people intervened, and UAnimals joined to support the animal. The organization paid for sedation, veterinary care, and transportation of the animal to the Ivano-Frankivsk region. She lived for another year at the stadium in the city of Burshtyn, as there was no enclosure yet for her at Kasova Hora.

Her neighbors are a herd of nine northern spotted deer that used to live in the Lviv region in a cramped enclosure of a recreation center. The place went bankrupt, and there was no one to take care of the animals. UAnimals, together with Volodymyr, transported them to Kasova Hora, where the deer now have incomparably more freedom. Later, one of the females gave birth to a fawn, so now there are ten animals in the herd. They share the vast territory of Kasova Hora with two other spotted deer, three European fallow deer, four mouflons, and eleven European roe deer.

The animals do not reproduce at the center, so during the mating season, males and females get separated. To do this, they are lured into a special enclosure with food. “They went in and moved in a circle. At one point, the whole herd came in, and I closed the door,“ explains Volodymyr. “The male approached the edge, so I got him in a cage and released him in a different area.” 

The animals receive basic care. They are vaccinated and treated for ticks (after being lured into the enclosure, the herd gets sprinkled with powder that protects against parasites). In winter, they are given a bit of oats and corn. In summer, they are only given salt licks. Everything else is as it is in nature. 

Souslik’s comeback: How spotted ground squirrels get reintroduced

The tin fence glitters in the sun, almost hurting the eyes. “And this is a souslik’s nest,” Volodymyr explains.

Seventy years ago, Kasova Hora and the surrounding area were full of them. Ihor, an animal expert from a local village, said that sousliks lived in the area, and he used to chase them with his friends when he was a child. The spotted souslik is more widely known as the spotted ground squirrel (Spermophilus suslicus). In Ukraine, this species is on the verge of extinction.

People were deliberately eradicating spotted ground squirrels because they caused significant damage to farms and gardens. In addition, spotted ground squirrels need steppes and meadows to survive. These are also disappearing. Unplowed land is being plowed, resulting in fewer livestock to graze and clear the overgrowth. Just a little while later the species might have vanished from Ukraine entirely. Scientists are currently working to restore it, including here at Kasova Hora. UAnimals supported the entire spotted ground squirrel reintroduction initiative.

The spotted ground squirrels that settled at Kasova Hora came from the Lviv region. The area where they lived with others of their kind was partially plowed. Experts caught several animals there and relocated them to Kasova Hora.

The so-called nest of the spotted ground squirrels at Kasova Hora manifests as an area surrounded by a metal fence. In the center of it, there is a smaller mesh enclosure. The animals lived there for two weeks, getting used to their new home. Then this mini-enclosure was opened, and the spotted ground squirrels went to explore the half-hectare adaptation enclosure.

Won’t they dig under the fence? No, because the metal is 50 centimeters deep in the ground. There is also a camera there to observe how the animals are settling in. Soon, a camera with a greater zoom will be installed.

A ground spotted squirrel scurries through the grass, but unfortunately, I am too busy examining the camera. The burrows and tunnels are clearly visible, with sunflower husks scattered here and there. “They’ve eaten everything,” Volodymyr inspects. “We give them sunflower seeds, which are quite fatty. The animals need a lot of fat to survive the winter. In nature, they eat seeds and hunt for beetles: grasshoppers and locusts.“

The spotted ground squirrels have been living here since June 1. Later, they will leave this enclosure and live at Kasova Hora, wherever they like. Volodymyr and those involved in the project want the colony to grow to at least 500 animals. For now, these few are being protected from predators.

An electric fence has been installed around the enclosure for this purpose. “If a ferret or a fox comes along, it will sniff it, get shocked, and run away. And we have a scarecrow to scare away birds,” Volodymyr points out.

Even I am scared of this “man” as he moves eerily in the wind.

“I made it move on purpose. The ground spotted squirrel’s biggest enemy is the lesser spotted eagle. It will see a person and not attack. So this ‘man’ protects our colony well.” I take a picture of Volodymyr with the scarecrow. “You can call it ‘The Two on Guard for the Spotted Ground Squirrels.’”

Euphorbia volhynica is endemic to Eastern Europe (it grows only there and nowhere else in the world). It is also a relic, a plant that existed from prehistoric times, when nature was very different. It bears witness to earlier eras.

We encounter the pheasant’s eye (Adonis vernalis). Without the blossoms, it resembles dill. It’s also known as the yellow pheasant’s eye due to its vivid yellow color. The plant is used to produce heart medicine. However, you cannot use it to brew a cup of tea for yourself. It is toxic.

Here and there, Chamaecytisus podolicus grows. It is also a local endemic species that loves rocky slopes. It is protected by international nature conservation lists. The spiky fescue underfoot feels good to the touch.

We are in Opillia, the westernmost part of the region. During past geological eras, seas covered these highlands. Gypsum and limestone formed at the bottom, resulting in rocky slopes. These places were not cultivated, therefore they became relics (they were little affected by humans and preserved many species). These are the region’s richest ecosystems, with the greatest diversity of animal and plant species.

We climb to the top. It is windy. A Eurasian goshawk is hunting above us. From the observation tower, you can see how fragile this beauty is. Right behind the fence, soybeans grow thickly, corn is visible below, and the neighboring hill is covered in bushes. “There used to be steppe on that hill too,” Volodymyr points out. “But now it’s overgrown. Either it will be plowed up, or it will turn into low-value forest.” Such forests are not rich in terms of biodiversity. There are few species of plants and animals there.

We descended for a while through purple moor grass and eagle fern. These are undesirable species here. They are not characteristic of the steppe and grow densely, suppressing other plants. “We mow the fern, but it just grows back.” Dane weed and the European dewberry are also a nuisance. Hoofed animals do not eat everything. They avoid dane weed because it smells bad to them.

“This is a bad spot,” Volodymyr nods at the eagle fern and dewberry. “But these slopes are great.” They are gray with feather grass. Przewalski’s mare appears again and watches us with her shiny dark eyes.

Beyond ungulates and spotted ground squirrels

We sit down near some piles of earth. They look as if a small excavator had been at work there. In fact, this is the work of the Podolian mole-rat (Spalax zemni). It is an endemic species, found only in the region of  Podillia. It is truly blind. Its eyes shrunk because it does not need them, as it lives underground. According to a local legend, when the mole asked God to give him sight, God ordered it to dig as many piles of earth as there are stars in the sky.

Instead, the Podolian mole-rat has long incisors, which it uses to gnaw passages in the ground. It eats the underground parts of plants. It lives alone and only meets other mole-rats to reproduce.

At Kasova Hora, “the population has miraculously survived,” says Volodymyr. There is another one in the Mykolaiv region.

Among the mammals on the mountain, there is also a team of nine hares, all undergoing rehabilitation, from different parts of the country.

Where there are many plants, there are also many insects. A rare purple bumblebee lives at Kasova Hora—the splay-footed carpenter bee (Xylocopa valga). The female builds containers from pollen for each of her eggs. At the bottom of the hill, there are wooden houses ready to welcome this rare insect.

In addition to bees, Kasova Mountain is home to the Ukraine bright bush-cricket (Poecilimon ukrainicus), which is a wingless grasshopper. Only a few individuals remain in nature due to the disappearance of the steppes. Therefore, it is listed in the Red Books of Ukraine and Poland.

Another wingless grasshopper is the predatory bush-cricket (Saga pedo). They are a girls-only club. Males exist in nature, but they are extremely rare. Reproduction occurs without their participation. New insects develop from eggs without fertilization. This type of reproduction is called parthenogenesis. Grasshoppers are predators, catching other insects from ambush.

We wander through the grass to the wild apple. Finally, a bit of shade! Volodymyr searches the ground for a ripe apple, but there is nothing there. Finally, he picks one from a branch.

“You see, the ungulates eat everything. The apples are tart, but they like them. A badger also comes here to eat. He used to live in abundance here, but poachers constantly caught him. Now they can’t do it!”

In the collapsed slopes of the mountain, there are burrows of the European bee-eater, the sand martin, and wild bees. Volodymyr and an employee created one such place for birds by hand, using shovels. Birds have indeed settled there.

While I am looking at the feather grass, I am called down to another solitary tree. It turns out that there is also a cave there. “This is the cave of the peacock butterfly. They hibernate there, and lots of them gather here,” says Volodymyr, settling down in the shade.

The peacock butterfly is a red butterfly known to all of us, and its Latin name is Aglais io, in honor of the beautiful Io, one of Zeus’s lovers.

A camera trap is hidden in the crown of a wild pear tree to monitor which birds fly here. Magpies, great grey shrikes, Eurasian goshawks, lesser spotted eagles, and thrushes are captured on camera.

Another observation point is located on a different pear tree. We climb a wooden ladder to a small terrace right in the crown of the wild pear tree. For Volodymyr, this is also a place for coffee and reflection.

Brainstorming on a tree

“There’s plenty of work to do,” says Volodymyr, leaning back on a bench where a pleasant breeze finally cools the heat. “Right now, I’m building a field kitchen for volunteers. You know, the kind with big frying pans so you can cook potatoes, just like at home.”

The man plans to set up an enclosure for animals that live in water. There have already been four cases where rescued otters could have been settled at Kasova Hora. However, there was no space, and the otters had to be sent elsewhere.

However, the main difficulty is to fence off the other areas of the plot.  Volodymyr currently leases 71 hectares of property, 23 of which have already been secured with a fence. If the same is done in other sections, males can be separated from females during mating season, and animals that cannot live together in a single enclosure, even if it is huge, can be allowed. “Someone asked me to take the red deer, but I couldn’t. He would attack everyone up here.”

By fencing off the second plot, according to the plan, the center will be able to accept another 50 ungulates.

“Everyone benefits from the existence of the center here. The community benefits because I preserve degraded land and pay land tax. And I am happy because it was my dream,” says Volodymyr.

Nowadays, tourists visit Kasova, and distinguished guests come here. However, not everyone is satisfied. Some people really want to see the animals, but this is not always possible. The animals do not sit around waiting for visitors.

School kids also come here. The local schools have introduced outdoor lessons at Kasova Hora for various grades, starting with the 6th grade. “First, we have a tour, then we sit down and talk with the children,” says Volodymyr. “We teach them to be compassionate towards wild animals. We show them how animals should live. Wild animals should live in the wild.”

This should have been a place filled with children’s laughter, the sound of a ball bouncing on the floor, and the teacher’s whistle stopping running exercises. Instead, for four consecutive days, veterinary consultations, procedures, and surgeries were taking place here. This is a school gymnasium in Vozdvyzhivska hromada (a basic unit of administrative division in Ukraine), where the UAnimals team temporarily set up a “veterinary clinic”. 

Medical help is provided not only to stray cats and dogs but also to animals from local residents. People from the hromada bring their pets for check-ups and consultations.

Roman Bidnenko, an animal catcher, is responsible for catching as many stray animals as the vets can provide medical care for. Moreover, during this mission, Roman managed to find a family for some stray puppies.

The family adopted the puppy after she was spayed, treated for parasites, vaccinated, and microchipped. This medical help was provided to all animals that came into the UAnimals “veterinary clinic” set up in the school gymnasium. The only exceptions were tiny kittens and puppies that were too young to get spayed or neutered. 

Some animals require treatment, and others need surgery.

In total, 379 animals received medical help.

“Kupiansk Rai”: several concrete letters have fallen from the district sign, leaving only “Rai” [“rai” means “paradise” in Ukrainian, while the original word on the sign was “Raion,” meaning “district”]. It’s hard to imagine anything more ironic.

Flags flutter in the wind. Fading inscriptions left by passersby shimmer on the painted concrete. The wind blows in our faces. My fellow veterinarians step out of the vehicle, and the dogs follow — beautiful Lyman and impossibly funny Ritchie. I capture them all on camera. A minute later, we’re back in the cars.

We dive beneath a tilted railway bridge; pieces hang over the road like something out of a movie with explosions and high-quality CGI. The car veers onto a dirt road, jostling us as clouds of dust rise.

At one point, the car dips down, leaving a few weary soldiers behind on the side — and I see water all around. Rusted remnants of the bridge jut up from the depths like the spine and ribs of a skeleton. Oskil [River]? I pull out my phone, recording a few seconds, but all that’s visible is dust, and all that’s audible is a tune on the radio, “Your heart will tell you, for it has sight. It’s him! It’s him for sure!”

Together with the veterinary team, we head toward Kivsharivka, where they will sterilize and treat animals. Thus begins the diary of these eight incredible, smoke-filled days.

Characters:

o   Nataliya Sokolova (Natalka) — Head of the Accessible Sterilization project, veterinarian.

o   Lolita Polishchuk (Lola) — Veterinary assistant.

o   Yuliya Tkachenko — Veterinarian.

o   Roman Bidnenko (Roma) — Animal catcher.

o   Oleksandr Pohrebnyi (Sasha) — Driver of the UAnimals veterinary vehicle.

o   Olha Slynko (Olya) — Volunteer.

o   Andriy Kharchyshyn (Andriy) — Manager of the UAnimals rescue department.

o   Liliya Florynska (Lilya) — Animal welfare volunteer from Kupiansk.

o   Ranok the Dog.

o   Village Council Head Vasyl Bokov — Head of the Osynovo Village Council.

o   Aunt Valya, Zina, and others.

Tuesday, September 3

The car sways wildly between the pale chalk hills, the landscape resembling a sliced Kyiv cake. 

Ahead, the Kivsharivka sign appears, painted blue and yellow. The flag flutters on it, too, though faded to a lavender hue. We head a bit south to the first spot where the mobile clinic will be set up — the village of Novoosynove.

At 2:02 p.m., we arrive. The unknown soldier [Soviet-era monuments present in virtually every village] bows slightly under an old birch tree. We park the veterinary vehicle there, hanging branches around it for cover, and carry our supplies into an abandoned outpatient clinic. In one of the rooms, military call signs and code words are pinned up. I drop my backpack there.

The clinic wall has a gaping hole, and beside it, a rose bush blooms. The roof is shattered, and torn wires dangle like garlands here and there. I walk further in. Shattered windows reveal smiles of jagged shards, and blackened streaks make it appear as if something hot has scraped the building.  The fence is scrawled with messages for the enemy. Finally, I see people — women sitting on benches surrounded by cats. “Are you a volunteer? I’d like to speak with you.”

I barely manage to explain the type of our volunteer mission before the women start sharing stories about their animals.

“Who wrote on the fence?” I ask.

“Oh, Valya wrote it while Kostya dictated. She really shouldn’t have! There are four mistakes in every word.”

On the way back, I indeed spot the inscription, “ruskiy korabil.” When I return, Roma, the animal catcher, has just arrived from his first round. Dogs and cats “spill” from the car like out of the mitten [reference to a Ukrainian fairy tale]. Well, it just seems that way — they’re actually secured in cages. These are strays that will be spayed, neutered, and treated for parasites.

One puppy is too small for a cage, so it was let to wander on the grass, waddling between the cages with little, wobbly steps. Wobble-wobble, wobble-wobble.

“We’ll vaccinate this one soon,” says Natalka. “Let’s get it on video. Can you hold it…?”

“I just need to grab my mic,” I say, but I can’t bring myself to set the puppy down.

“Hand it over here; I’ll hold it,” offers Andriy, our manager.

I start to feel a pang of jealousy.

“Why don’t you two go together?” Natalka suggests, ending the debate.

I hurry to the clinic to fetch my mic, still holding the pup. The little one shivers like an aspen leaf but obediently sits on the couch while I search for the equipment. Once ready, we vaccinate and microchip him. I capture the process on film and already feel like I’ll never let this pup go.

Meanwhile, Natalka, Lola, and Yulia begin sedating the animals in the cages and starting the surgeries. Later, these cats and dogs will be vaccinated for rabies and treated for parasites. Roma and volunteer Olya are preparing for the next round of captures. I grab my camera and barely manage to jump in the car with them.

“Turn around so it doesn’t see me!” seems to be the mantra of the day. Roma shouts it to everyone helping bring a cat or dog to the car. He holds that if the animal doesn’t see the catcher, he can safely take it from its owner and quickly place it in a cage.

We gather cats around Novoosynove and Kivsharivka. Some people hand them over; others, Roma catches with a special trap cage baited with fragrant kibbles. Some are caught barehanded, while others need a net. By dusk, we’re back with 18 cats in cages.

The veterinarians finish their surgeries: 15 animals sterilized on the first day. It may not seem like much, but we still have plenty of time ahead.

The frontline rumbles, making it impossible to sleep in the clinic tonight. We gather our things and head to the basement of a five-story building. The building seems empty, but suddenly, a woman materializes near the entrance with a bicycle. “You all need a place to wash up! There’s an empty, bombed-out apartment with a water supply. The soldiers used to go there to bathe. Oh, how long we have lived with them here! They left at one point, then returned because they were afraid Aunt Valya wasn’t around anymore. But here I am. They meet me, they wheel my bicycle up… Second floor, there’s a spoon sticking out of the lock.”

Wednesday, September 4

In the morning, I head out again with Roma, the animal catcher, and Olya. Roma drives, while Olya keeps tabs on requests coming from Andriy and occasionally Natalka, jotting them down in her notebook and managing calls on her phone. After returning animals to their owners in Novoosynove, we set off to the village of Podoly to follow up on more requests. We bump along the dirt road like wandering Bedouins on camels, the air thick with smoke.

In Podoly, we’re met by Zina, a local volunteer who shelters abandoned dogs and knows where others might be found. She’s essentially our diplomatic envoy in this village. Zina hops into the car and confidently extends her tanned finger from the window, directing us.

Our first stop is with a woman picking up her already-sterilized dog, Pushynka. The woman cries with joy when she receives her dog and again when handing over Pushynka’s puppies for sterilization. “You’ll bring them back tomorrow, right?”

Our car crawls over sand dunes left by military vehicles, reaching a neighborhood where many residents remain.

“Where’s your other cat?” one woman asks. “My comadre is still trying to catch her,” another replies. “Those are my cats,” waves a woman in a snow-white headscarf. “They’re displaced. They used to live in the military’s house over there, but then they came to me. A cat and three kittens. The soldiers left, and nobody was feeding them.”

Our conversations with people go smoothly until we arrive at the home of some local drinkers, where dogs cluster outside. Despite our diplomatic envoy doing her best, we couldn’t break through the wall of incomprehension. A man and woman shout and tell us, along with Zina, to go away. We manage to take only one dog for sterilization.

Today, we sterilized 46 animals and distributed rabies vaccines and parasite treatments — items unavailable for purchase here.

Thursday, September 5

Emerging from the basement, my eyes take a while to adjust to the light.

A rumble starts: two helicopters soar overhead, their heavy bellies skimming above me, only to return minutes later. I spot blue and yellow insignias. Hopefully, they accomplished what they set out to do.

Everything around is humming and vibrating. At the mobile clinic, our first client is Simka, a cat brought in by an older man, Oleksandr Vasylovych. He tells us he has another cat, Bilka, along with three kittens. Maybe we can catch and vaccinate them? We head to his yard together.

Under the grapevines, the kittens huddle on the seat of an old rusted moped.

“I could leave here,” Oleksandr Vasylovych laments. “I’d let my little dog go. But what about these ones? I’m in a deadlock! I don’t know what to do with them! I’ve got nowhere to go, let alone take them. If I leave, it would be to the Sumy region. But they’re not wanted there.”

We manage to catch two and carry them back. Another cat comes out. “Murchyk, come along! Today’s my birthday. I didn’t know since there’s no power, and then I charged my phone and saw that it was today.”

Meanwhile, locals continue arriving at the mobile clinic, some women bringing cats quite literally in sacks. Everyone discusses last night’s shelling in Kivsharivka. One shell hit the bus station near the kiosk where we bought food yesterday.

By late morning, I set out with Roma again to Kivsharivka and Podoly. After the strikes, the smoke was thicker. The bus station is blackened and destroyed, and patches of grass are still smoldering.

At 12:01 p.m., one of the busiest episodes of the veterinary mission begins. After returning sterilized animals to Podoly, we set off to locate a collapsed house rumored to be sheltering seven puppies. All feral, and they need to be caught to vaccinate them.

We finally locate the place: a sieve instead of a fence, and the house missing an entire wall. Piles of bricks cover the ground, while shelves stocked with canned food and household items are visible inside. Roma and I enter what used to be the kitchen — it’s dark and disorderly.

We shine our flashlights around but manage to locate only two puppies. The others dart under a gap in the floorboards, and the next 20 minutes are filled with dust and chaotic scurrying. Roma uses some kind of a rod to pry up the floor, reaching into the holes to grab the puppies by hand. They whimper, but eventually, we catch them all.

Back in Novoosynove, I set off on foot to find another store. A dull thud echoes in the distance. At an intersection, a burnt car lies under a wooden sign labeled “Store” with an arrow pointing left. I follow it. The houses along the way have warped walls, and on one, with relatively fresh pink paint, someone has scrawled, “Glory to Ukraine, death to enemies!”

“Do you have any bread?” I ask.

“No bread delivery today. Tomorrow.”

Apart from bread, they seem to have everything else.

By day’s end, we had operated on 37 animals, most of which were captured strays. We continued distributing parasite treatments.

As the sun sets, I step outside to take in the village. Tended but empty gardens stretch before me. Corn and unharvested tomatoes. Marigolds bloom everywhere.

Friday, September 6

We’re at a new location, though the village name isn’t much different — Osynovo, now on the right bank of the Oskil. Once again, we set up the mobile clinic near the village council and community center, where a crowd has already gathered. Some wait with cats and dogs for sterilization, while others simply want to chat. They sit beside us on the bench, talking, and talking, and talking… The common theme for everyone here is their dogs and cats.

Midday, soldiers bring in a dog named Sandy, who resembles a husky, for sterilization.

“She’s our sister in arms,” says Sasha, a soldier, squinting in the sun. “She’s been with us in the dugouts, the trenches… always hiding with us in the shelters. She’s been with us since she was a pup.”

Roman turns to me and asks, “Shall we head to the dump?” I nod, “Of course.”

The local dump is said to be a goldmine for catching stray animals. We arrive during the golden hour when everything is bathed in the warm glow of the low sun. Golden-tinted trash blankets the hills.

We’re followed by a man of remarkable erudition: “I know three languages,” he declares, “Ukrainian, russian, and Romani! And here’s my dog. Bomba, come here!”

Our trip to the dump is only partially successful; we manage to pick up just one dog there and another on the way back.

But today, more owners have started bringing their animals for sterilization. Altogether, we sterilize 59 cats and dogs: 33 brought in by their owners, with the rest from our animal catching rounds.

We settle in for the night at the village community center. The head of the village council brings us blankets; I lay mine beneath a poster of a Soviet soldier. There’s no Wi-Fi or phone signal here, so to catch an internet connection from the Starlink, we have to step onto the council’s porch. However, the community center houses a small library with relatively modern books. A red-painted sign above reads, “Kupiansk District! Our homeland.”

Saturday, September 7

“I brought seven cats from Kupiansk,” says volunteer Yulia, setting seven carriers in a row. “I collected them from people who can’t bring them here for sterilization on their own. Many people have left, abandoning their animals, who can’t fend for themselves. I’ve taken in one cat and four dogs. Some others, we go and feed.”

Today, animals are brought in from Kupiansk, a soldier and a few villagers come by. Later in the afternoon, I head to Kupiansk myself with Roman. We’re not alone: volunteer Lilia joins us, her notebook filled with addresses.

“How’s veterinary care here?” I ask. “Nonexistent,” Lilia replies. “It’s been about ten months without any help. Sometimes, people contact veterinarians in Kharkiv online or take animals themselves to Chuhuiv or Kharkiv. There used to be a clinic in Shevchenkove, but it’s gone too. Now, it’s only phone consultations.”

By the end of the day, the vets sterilized 67 cats and dogs.

Sunday, September 8

“This here is Sofa. She’s a sweetheart, never causes trouble,” a local woman, a mother of three, tells me about her dog. “Either way, she needs to be sterilized. It’s better for the dog and for us — otherwise, we’d have way too many dogs. I also have Lyalya. When the explosions are close, they run everywhere, barking. Sofa sleeps under my car because she’s scared of explosions.”

The wait is long, and soon, the woman shifts to sharing memories of the occupation.

“They took everyone to the basements, forced us to sing the russian anthem. Some made it out; some didn’t. It was terrifying when planes flew over the rooftops. At first, I’d huddle in a corner, clutching my head… I don’t know how I managed to pull myself together. It took them a long time to push them out of the woods. Now that our troops are here, it’s not as scary. God forbid it happens again.”

A clear autumn sky with thin, transparent clouds.

This is Prystin, the third village on our route. Here, too, we’ve set up the mobile clinic beside the village council and community center. Beneath a bench, a neat pile of shell fragments is stacked — smooth metal with jagged, torn edges.

At 5:37 p.m., the air thickens with smoke. The first puppy vaccinated during the mission sleeps, unbothered by any explosions. In Osynovo, I’ve already named him Ranok [“Morning”]. Some people sit “under the Starlink,” trying to pick up a signal. Andriy is on the phone with UAnimals manager Nastya: “I’ll text you every hour, ‘All good, all good.’”

This reassurance is necessary because it was whistling and falling nearby recently. We ducked behind a wall, though who knows what good it would’ve done.

Just afterward, our driver Sasha calls out, “Drone!” and we crouch near a birch for a few minutes.

I see people outside the village tying three cows to graze. The young women continue their surgeries while Roman is on a capture round.

In the evening, the village council head stops by again. “That drone dropped something near my house. There was some kind of another thing,  it fell in a woman’s yard. I’ll go visit her and tell you what that was. Will this one here turn out like marble?” He nods at Ranok, who indeed has a reddish coat with faint marbled patterns.

The veterinarians work late as usual: today, they’ve operated on 41 animals.

To keep the light use minimal, only the vet van stays illuminated. Once that light goes out, everything is swallowed by thick darkness. Only the sky over Kivsharivka continues to flash.

Monday, September 9

Early in the morning, something hit nearby again. I hear the village head on the phone, asking, “Could you bring a couple of canisters of water, at least? There was a strike, and we don’t want the fire spreading to the sunflowers…”

It’s the second-to-last day, so, together with Andriy, the manager, we record a video summarizing our efforts. He holds the shaggy Lyman in his arms. “The Grads [MLRS] last night were memorable,” Andriy says with a half-smile.

But it’s time to take stock for real: the vet mission has provided aid to 390 animals, most of them strays.

Tonight, there are few stars, but the moon is visible. It’s waxing but no longer a thin crescent. Its broader shape glows in the sky — a strange, blood-red hue.

Tuesday, September 10

We pack up, load Ranok into the car, and begin the slow drive back to Kharkiv with Sasha in the vet van. The veterinarians, Roma, and Andriy take a second van. The vet van has some mechanical issues, so we can only drive in second gear, giving us ample time to take in the sights of the Kharkiv region — beautiful and smoke-filled. russian radio occasionally breaks through the static.

In Kharkiv, I stop by a pet store, buy a dog carrier, and head home.

We arrive in Kyiv that evening, all of us — the veterinarians, Andriy, Sasha, and us with the dog.

Just before arrival, I text Natalka: “How are you?” “All’s well,” she replies, sending a photo from the van with a glass in hand. “Celebrating life.” And the little “marbled” dog is giving me a hard time to finish this text.

Budum… Budum… Budum… A white minibus crawls through 300-year-old pine trees. This is the Lithuanian forest in the Hetman National Nature Park. Before it became a protected area, the place was rife with poaching—electrofishing, nets, and 12-gauge hunting rifles.

Later, when the area became a nature reserve, some locals wrote letters to then-President Yanukovych, urging the park to be dissolved. “In a few years, you won’t have anywhere to graze your cows because this land will be privatized, and the fields will be plowed,” the deputy head of the environmental education department recalls telling them. Over time, the locals grew accustomed to the rules. Perhaps, because fines increased tenfold.

Trrr… The head of the Hetman Park’s state protection service stops his car. He needs to inspect the area. He parks at a recreational site with gazebos, tables, and swings. In the past, people from Sumy, Poltava, and Kharkiv would come here to breathe the fresh air. Now, only park staff can enjoy this privilege, as visiting the forests is prohibited. At the beginning of the full-scale war, the park was under russian occupation for nearly a month, and it is potentially contaminated with explosives. While sappers have not yet inspected the area, park scientists have already begun their work.

Nature Adapts

Mykola Hryhorovych points his camera at a fragment in a fallen tree trunk. Nearby, there is a crater from an airstrike that took place back in February 2022. He tilts his head back to observe the tree tops. On one side of the clearing, death has passed through—burned, decayed, dead branches. On the other side, green and living pines. This contrast reveals the wind’s direction on the day of the raid—northern, as the southern side of the trees suffered the most.

Mykola Hryhorovych is the newly appointed head of the park’s research department. Previously, he taught at the Sumy National Agricultural University’s ecology department and brought students here to study the species composition of plants. Now, he and his colleague, entomologist Oleksandr Volodymyrovych, are examining a crater left by a shell.

He scrapes the soil and puts samples into small jars. These are samples for monitoring, which will show the impact of the war on nature. However, it’s too early to draw conclusions now, as changes in the soil might only appear over time. In 20-30 years, a full atomic spectral analysis will be conducted to understand which elements migrate from the soil to the plants.

But now a brief inspection reveals that the plants are determined to overcome difficulties and changes. Birch and pine trees are already regenerating. Perhaps they were growing here before the shelling, and the explosion failed to completely destroy their roots. Or maybe a bird dropped a cone, leading to the growth of new trees. Moss, the first “settler,” is also taking root here. This change in the ecosystem is known as succession. Sometimes, its manifestations can be quite unpredictable.

“How did a marsh species end up here?” Mykola Hryhorovych wonders as he examines a reed stalk and narrowleaf cattail inside the crater. “Maybe the rains helped… but I don’t think there’s been been much rainfall.”

Mykola Hryhorovych calls Oleksandr Volodymyrovych for help. The entomologist dismisses it, saying that it is just moisture that had accumulated. After all, an entomologist is more interested in insects. He pokes the soil with a stick and notices wasp burrows. Striped insects burrow into the sandy slopes, where they breed. With each new crater from a shell, the population of wasps and bees increases. 

There is even a tarantula burrow in one of the craters. But it is not just insects that inhabit these war-created apartments.

Mykola Hryhorovych kneels in another crater and peers into a black hole under charred branches. A fox has made its home here and recently gave birth to a litter. A few meters away, there should be another hole through which the animals can escape in emergencies. He looks out of the crater, scanning the surroundings, but can’t find the emergency exit. He sets off to search, overcoming obstacles—fallen and broken trees—but doesn’t find the desired passage. The foxes have hidden their escape route well, away from prying eyes.

Instead, Mykola Hryhorovych notices something else. Near the charred tree stump that was at the center of the explosion, crustose lichens are appearing. The farther from the explosion site, the more visible these plants become. This, he says, is a good sign—the air is becoming cleaner. In fact, there is an entire branch of science that evaluates environmental conditions based on crustose lichens—Lichenoindication . But there aren’t enough hands to engage in this work here, another consequence of the war.

How the Big is Captivated by the Small

“Look at the beautiful admiral flying!” — Oleksandr Volodymyrovych spotted a butterfly.

A man nearly two meters [~6.7 feet] tall studies small insects. Oleksandr Volodymyrovych has been working as an entomologist at Hetman Park for seven years. Together with his colleagues, he observed that three years before the full-scale invasion, butterflies migrated from Crimea to the forest-steppe here. The entomologist believes that global warming likely played a role.

Research on insects in the park also led to the discovery of new species. In 2014, a unique species of leaf-miner flies was found here—Ophiomyia adunca Guglya, named in honor of Kharkiv scientist Yuliya Guglya.

So, as soon as the city of Trostianets was liberated, Oleksandr Volodymyrovych hurried back to the fields—hoping there were new discoveries waiting to be made. He wrote to the military administration, asking for permission to use lights during nighttime research. He explained that it was necessary to monitor the insect population. Of course, one could chase insects with a net instead of using light, but Oleksandr Volodymyrovych wasn’t quite in shape for that anymore.

The military hesitated for a long time, as active fighting had ended only two months earlier. Eventually, they granted permission, chose a safe spot, and left the researchers for the whole night. That night, the forest near the village of Zhuravne was quiet, save for the buzzing of insects. They flocked to the lamp, and the scientist described every species he saw.

Before the war, there were five such expeditions a year, but now, a single one is considered a blessing. Many scientists have joined the military, and some are reluctant to venture into the field due to safety concerns. They say that even in the most remote areas of the park, near Poltava, there could still be explosives.

Saved by Ancient Oak Trees

Today, some former employees who now serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine visited the park. Among them was Oleksandr, who had been steadily climbing the career ladder since 2013 and, just before the full-scale war, held the position of a leading wildlife protection engineer. He used to catch poachers and conduct raids. But after February 24, 2022, his duties changed: instead of chasing poachers, he now had to chase russians through the forest.

In the first days of the full-scale invasion, Oleksandr evacuated his family to Poltava and returned to defend his home. He called his friends to meet and head into the city together. Trostianets had already been occupied, so the only way to get there was via forest paths not even locals always knew.

It was on these paths that Oleksandr and his friends encountered soldiers from the Kholodnyi Yar 93rd Brigade. They introduced themselves and agreed to show the brigade every passage into the city and the locations of the russians. They lived together in the ravines, planning surprise attacks on the invaders. However, the generals repeatedly postponed the assault.

During the day, the temperature hovered around 0°C [32°F], but at night, it dropped to -17°C [1.4°F]. The soldiers had no sleeping bags, and they couldn’t light fires. They sat freezing under ancient oaks with thick canopies. The russians bombarded them with shells, and many exploded in the branches. In a way, the park protected the soldiers.

Finally, on March 21, the assault began. The russians scattered in all directions, falling into classic hunting ambushes. That day, Oleksandr received seven shrapnel wounds and ended up in a hospital. After a few months, he recovered and fully mobilized into the army. Now, he beams with joy when he talks about shooting down Shahed UAVs at night, “We took down eight today.” 

However, the drones don’t always burn up in the air—they often fall into forests, where they start fires that can smolder for days, or even weeks.

Currently, smoke still rises from the area in Hetman Park where a Shahed drone crashed into the peatlands. Thick soil, fallen trees, and the stench of burning linger. The drone went down about two weeks ago. For the military, the priority is human life, and only after that comes nature. This particular Shahed could have reached its target—who knows what that might have been. Perhaps, an ordinary residential building or yet another hospital.

“The park will recover on its own, and we will help it,” says Oleksandr. “You can plant trees, and in 30 years they’ll grow—but it doesn’t work that way with human life.”

Life Has Changed

Before February 24, 2022, when Oleksandr was not yet a soldier, he often walked his dog in the park. His energetic dog would race through the forest for 40 minutes, rest, and then start running in circles again. Now, such activities are too dangerous. In the spring, after the de-occupation, many animals—foxes, hares, and dogs—were killed by tripwire mines. These days, Oleksandr’s dog sees only the confines of his own yard. “I don’t know where to walk my dog in Trostianets,” says the soldier. “The dog’s going to go mad in that kennel.”

The war has also affected the lives of wild animals—both birds and large mammals. Some have been forced to migrate to quieter areas, while others flee from the explosions even into human hands.

After the occupation, wolf tracks were spotted on the outskirts of Trostianets. Oleksandr suggests that the wolves likely migrated from the russian border or the Donetsk region, where intense fighting is currently raging. Previously, wolves were just occasional visitors to Hetman Park—passing through maybe once every two years.

Even on duty, the soldier has seen wild animals: several herds of wild boars ventured onto a mine-laden field. His colleague Maksym, who worked in the park’s tourism and ecology department before being mobilized, shared a story about encountering a lynx. He was stationed in the Chernihiv region with his brothers-in-arms, digging trenches, when suddenly a lynx strolled into their position and arrogantly laid down on a bench. The soldiers were scared, “Commander, should we shoot it? What if it jumps on one’s head—scary stuff.” Maksym wouldn’t allow it. The lynx thanked them for their humane decision by not harming either him or his subordinates. That was the end of the encounter.

“Animals are getting used to the explosions and are more at ease than before the war,” says Maksym. “This is because there are no poachers or hunters now.”

Nature adapts, despite everything, as long as it’s left in peace.

The head of the park’s protection service pulls out a gondola—or rather, an inflatable boat—and sets off on an inspection tour along the Vorskla River. The river has shallowed this year, and only the fry are racing about. Driftwood, submerged yesterday, now fascinates with its shapes on dry land. Still, some remain underwater. The somber man pushes through the trees and thorny branches, finally emerging into the “open sea.” The Vorskla remains silent and resting. It feels as though peace is possible, and life is slowly returning here. The nearest frontline is less than 100 kilometers [~62 miles] from Hetman Park.

This publication was compiled with the support of the European Union and the International Renaissance Foundation within the framework «European Renaissance of Ukraine» project. Its content is the exclusive responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union and the International Renaissance Foundation.

We meet Leonid Myslyvets, the mayor of Oster, on the banks of the Desna, near the rescue station. He spreads a map of the community over the car hood to show the length of the riverbed—from the village of Bilyky in the north to Krekhaiv in the south, covering over 50 kilometers. Almost every day, rescuers go out on the water here to check if any dead fish have appeared along the shores.

Black Water

Oster lies on the Desna, halfway between Kyiv and Chernihiv. By car, it takes about 1.5 to 2 hours to reach from either city. Just south of the town is the Beremytske Nature Park, where green tourism had been promoted before the full-scale war. However, the russian invasion, followed by russia’s poisoning of the Seym and Desna rivers, significantly reduced the flow of visitors.

The pollution of the Seym in the Sumy region began around August 14, when the first reports of deteriorating water quality emerged. By September, it had reached the Chernihiv region. Social media was flooded with photos and videos showing hundreds, if not thousands, of dead fish along the riverbanks. There were fears that the contaminated water could even reach Kyiv.

From mid-August to mid-September, local authorities and volunteers in the Sumy and Chernihiv regions collected nearly 40 tons of dead fish.

“The poisoned water reached us on September 12. At that time, we set up two small aeration stations along the shore, and from them, we placed tubes into the water—one 40 meters long, the other 70. We punched holes in the tubes, following advice from the department [Desna Basin Water Resources Management],” Leonid explains. “The water is gradually getting oxygenated: our divers went down there and said that fish gather near the oxygen sources to survive.”

We head down to the pier, where we can hear a buzzing sound. These aren’t russian Shahed drones that fly along the Desna at night. Near the water, there are two small pumps, each providing a flow of 400–450 liters [100-120 gallons] per minute. Tubes extend from the pumps into the water, and from the middle of the river, you can see bubbles being carried along by the current.

“The water still isn’t bright and clear enough, but on September 13, let’s say, it was like tar, and there was a dark residue along the banks. Now there’s much less of it. But if the situation worsens, we’ll install more aeration stations—we’ve already arranged with local businesses to add four more of varying capacities,” the mayor of Oster states.

While chatting, we put on life vests brought by Oleksiy, a rescuer. He helps us settle into a boat, starts the engine, and steers us to the middle of the river. We speed upstream. Both banks are empty. Occasionally, a solitary gull soars above the water, or a kite circles high in the sky.

“Fortunately, it didn’t come to a fish die-off in Oster. There’s a key indicator—the level of dissolved oxygen in the water. The normal value is 7 milligrams per cubic decimeter or higher. Ours dropped to 5, and below 4, fish begins to die. Another indicator is chemical oxygen demand, also measured in milligrams per cubic decimeter. The normal level is around 30, but ours reached 50 or more. I know that upstream, it could reach more than 100,” Leonid explains.

A drop in the first indicator and an increase in the second shows that a chemical reaction is consuming oxygen from the water. When fish start dying, they begin to decompose, which also requires oxygen.

“If there’s a fish die-off, they need to be collected quickly. We were prepared for this and are still ready because we read reports of more pollution being dumped into the Seym. The rescue station has six boats and nets to retrieve the dead fish. Even some locals have offered to help. So, I hope we’re ready if it comes to that,” says Leonid.

We approach the boundary of the community along the river. No dead fish are visible along the shores. Currently, in Oster and throughout the Desna and Seym, there is a ban on using the water for any purpose, swimming or fishing. But this doesn’t stop the locals. As we moved upstream, we saw several fishermen: one casting from a boat and two others from the shore. When they noticed us, they pretended they were just relaxing and that the rods and reels weren’t theirs.

“What can you do about them?” Oleksiy chuckles. “Some people just don’t care about bans. I hope they don’t get poisoned. At least at the market, they try to control the sale of dead fish. But how do you control it on the river? Sure, we go out every day, travel upstream. But we can’t be going back and forth all day,” the rescuer complains.

Oleksiy steers our boat into an old part of the riverbed—the natural course of the Desna. The one we had traveled earlier was dug during Soviet times. The Desna, though navigable, was too winding, so they decided to dig a straighter course. During the fish die-off, the old channel became a refuge.

“The fish sought refuge in the old riverbed, these backwaters, to survive. The water here was cleaner—people noticed that. You won’t see it now, though, because the water quality has improved,” explains Oleksiy, peering into the water. “Oh, beaver dens. I hope we haven’t disturbed them too much because beavers are the real masters here,” he adds as we turn back into the newer river channel.

On our way back, we spot tourists with a tent on one of the banks. Leonid remarks that these are the first he’s seen since the river pollution began. Before the full-scale war, up to 300-500 cars would pass through Beremytske Park, that is, its parking lot, every day.

“Usually, from late May to October, people would come to the Desna for camping. In the Oster area alone, there could be as many as 5,000 visitors during the season. Now, the shore is empty. As soon as the news of river contamination broke, people stopped coming,” Leonid explains.

We dock at the shore. The aeration stations are humming. The rescuers tell us that they keep running even during power outages, thanks to a dedicated generator.

How They Dispose of the Fish

The village of Slabyn, located 60 kilometers from Oster, is part of the neighboring Honcharivka community. We meet with the local elder, Serhiy Kraskov, also near the Desna. He’s currently giving an interview to British journalists.

Even though we’re standing on the steep right bank, the wind still carries the heavy, cloying stench of decay from the water. As soon as we descend, the smell hits us with full force. Dark patches are visible on the water, and along the shore, there are black streaks left by residue. However, there are almost no dead fish on the shore—they were mostly collected the day before. Nevertheless, among the shoreline vegetation, some dead crucian carp can still be seen, and a pike about a meter long lies nearby.

“The banks here are overgrown, so a lot of dead fish got stuck there. On Sunday, September 15, we walked along the shore and pulled them out with nets. We had people from the village council, the cultural center, and the medical outpost helping. There were also a few volunteers with boats—they took care of the opposite shore. That day, we gathered almost one and a half tons,” Serhiy recalls.

Simply discarding or burying the collected fish isn’t an option: the decomposition products could contaminate the soil and groundwater. Therefore, a special burial site is needed—a deep pit lined with concrete wells with a concrete bottom. These burial sites are sealed with a similar concrete cover and placed far from water sources and residential areas.

“In our community, there’s still a burial pit left from Soviet times, but it hasn’t been used since the 1980s. I remember talking about it with Chernihiv [the State Environmental Inspectorate in the Chernihiv region] when the foul water reached them, and they were also gathering dead fish,” says Serhiy.

We head out to see this burial pit. It’s a few dozen kilometers of driving along rough field roads. As the car bounces over the bumps, Serhiy continues talking about the die-off: many large fish perished. The biggest one he saw was a catfish about a meter long. They collected bream, crucian carp, and zander, and the most numerous were pikes.

“I don’t know how all this will recover. If both the large and small fish have died, who will lay the eggs? Unless we artificially restock. Plus, maybe something will come down from the upper Desna, where the poisoned water didn’t reach. But even if that happens, who can guarantee that this won’t happen again in a year or two? russia isn’t going anywhere,” Serhiy says in frustration.

We cross the highway connecting Kyiv and Chernihiv and head into dense wooded plantations between fields. In one of these plantations, we stop and get out. From there, we continue on foot along a packed dirt road leading to a deep pit. The closer we get, the stronger the stench becomes. The pit is about four meters deep, roughly the same width, and about ten meters long. If it weren’t for the two concrete wells, it could easily pass for a dugout for armored vehicles.

“Since September 13, I’ve been dealing with this burial pit. We urgently ordered concrete rings from a local business to line the wells. It turned out that in the forty years since it was last used, the burial pit had completely grown over with trees. There was no access, so we had to cut down some of them. Now, we need to lay an asphalt road here,” says Serhiy.

We approach the wells. One is empty, while the other is nearly full of bags sprinkled with chlorine. Despite the concrete lining, puddles are starting to form at the bottom of the pit—a result of the decomposition of the dead fish. The buzzing of green flies, seemingly thousands of them, is unbearable.

“Since we’re a starostat [an administrative unit headed by a starosta—a village elder], bureaucracy moves slowly here: we can’t make quick payments, especially on a Friday evening. But I’m grateful to the local businessmen who delivered the first three concrete rings already on Saturday. And on Monday, September 16, they brought three more. It was all based on trust—they trusted that we’d pay them later. But we needed to bury the fish immediately,” Serhiy explains.

The community ordered a second well just in case, anticipating a larger die-off. However, by September 17, the number of dead fish had decreased, so it wasn’t needed for now.

The filled well will eventually be sealed with a concrete cover and buried. A fence and warning signs will be placed around the perimeter of the burial site so that locals won’t accidentally unearth it a decade or two from now.

New Pollution Incident

On September 17, Serhiy Zhuk, the head of the Environmental Inspection in the Chernihiv region, told UAnimals media that the situation in the rivers of the Chernihiv region had finally improved: “The fish are no longer dying. I can say this because I personally walked along the banks. We still find dead fish, but these are ones that died 3-5 days ago, surfacing from the bottom or from under the roots. Of course, the Seym and Desna waters are still unsafe for swimming. Almost all life there has perished, and an unpleasant odor persists. However, the levels of oxygen, ammonium, and iron are normalizing.”

The Chernihiv and Sumy regions are still calculating the damages, which are currently estimated to be around 450 million hryvnias.

This environmental crime has clear russian involvement. The Department of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of the Sumy Regional State Administration believes that wastewater from a sugar factory in the village of Tyotkino, in russia’s Kursk region, entered Ukrainian rivers. This conclusion was drawn after analyzing satellite images: they show that in early August, the wastewater accumulation basin at the factory was full, but by the second half of August (when reports of pollution in Ukrainian rivers emerged), it had emptied. Moreover, laboratory analysis of the water found substances “specific to sugar production.”

This is not the first time that russian activities have polluted Ukrainian rivers with wastewater. Oleksandr Yemets, a research associate at the Seymskiy Regional Landscape Park, recalled that this had happened at least twice before: in 2011, when an accident occurred at the treatment facilities in Kursk, and the dam near Tyotkino deliberately released polluted water into Ukraine, and again this year at the end of May. On those occasions, fish and crustaceans also perished. Each time, the incidents increased the risk of extinction for a unique species of the region, the Desman, which is on the Red List of endangered animals.

Unfortunately, this might not be the last such environmental crime. On September 16, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources reported further deterioration of water quality in the Seym. Samples taken in the village of Manukhivka (about three kilometers from the russian border) indicated a drop in oxygen levels. Once again, russia is the most likely source of this pollution. However, identifying the exact origin and cause of the contamination is difficult due to ongoing hostilities in the Kursk region, which borders Sumy.

As of September 25, polluted water reached Baturyn in the Chernihiv region. The dissolved oxygen level, as mentioned earlier, was less than one—ranging between 0.3 and 0.8 milligrams per cubic decimeter. In the Sumy region, between the villages of Mutyn and Ozarichi, the oxygen in the water was completely depleted. The next day, the situation in the Seym in the Chernihiv region worsened further.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection assures that this pollution incident is not as severe as the one in August, and the rivers should be able to recover more quickly. However, if a fish die-off occurs again, the border communities will once again have to collect the dead fish from the banks.

This publication was compiled with the support of the European Union and the International Renaissance Foundation within the framework «European Renaissance of Ukraine» project. Its content is the exclusive responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union and the International Renaissance Foundation.

A few minutes by car from Kyiv, you arrive in the village of Chubynske. Here, four bears and a wolf live at the Bila Skelia sanctuary, which means White Rock in Ukrainian. I enter the gates, fully confident that the bears will be somewhere far away and that I’ll only see them through a camera lens with a 5x zoom. If only they would poke their noses out!

However, almost immediately, a nearly 300-kilogram bear named Synochok approaches the fence and watches my every step intently.

“Watching a moving object is a natural behavior for a predator. It doesn’t mean he will attack, but he’s curious. When people come with cameras, he openly enjoys himself. You are potential prey,” says the sanctuary’s co-founder and predator behavior and ecology specialist, Maryna Shkvyria.  

Well, it’s good that the bear got curious and approached me. After all, nothing but curiosity would make him leave his important business deep in the enclosure. He has a choice of where to be, when, and what to do. The task of the rehabilitation center for animals rescued from cages is precisely this: to create conditions that help them make choices. It turns out this can be quite difficult.

Climbing, Running, Swimming, Chewing

There is no actual rock at Bila Skelia. However, an artificial white rock once stood in the enclosure where bears Liubochka and Mykhasyk used to live. That enclosure was not here but at a shelter in the Zhytomyr region.

That shelter appeared in Berezivka back in 2012 and was initially called Hope. The international foundation Four Paws managed it, which later founded another bear sanctuary, Domazhyr, in the Lviv region. Consequently, Hope came under the care of the Save Wild Foundation and became the Bila Skelia sanctuary. Some of the bears there gradually moved to Domazhyr. Bila Skalia was then developed at a new location in Chubynske, and operations began in 2020.

“It was difficult,” says zoologist Yehor Yakovliev, Maryna’s husband and co-founder of Bila Skelia. “We drew the sketches of the sanctuary with Maryna, and I did the more precise planning and calculations. Then, the plumbing and welding work began, which I and nine other people carried out. We transported the bears in 2020, too. While they wintered in small enclosures, we built the large ones. We worked all year.”

Synochok looks at me from behind the net. Though he is clearly visible, he is separated from me by a 3.5-meter-high fence and two layers of Electric shepherd is an electrified fence that does not allow animals to go beyond a certain area. electric shepherd. Safety is the number one concern in the design of bear enclosures. In addition to visible fences, there are also hidden ones.

Yehor explains, “There is also a net in the ground so the bear cannot dig a way out. A bear is a compulsive animal. For example, if it senses water flowing underground, it will dig very long and persistently, breaking structures. A bear can remove a cubic meter (35 cubic feet) of soil daily. It’s a big challenge for us to fix everything they break.”

Inside each enclosure, there is a small pool and a den. Bears love interacting with objects and feeling different textures, so the enclosure has plenty of logs, branches, and stones of various shapes that the animals can move around in various ways.

Synochok had never seen anything like this before. 

He spent nine years in a circus cage and first set foot on the grass at the sanctuary in the Zhytomyr region. Here in Chubynske, he started making himself at home: he moved stones and logs around to rearrange his den.

Maryna Shkvyria says, “A bear in a rehabilitation center is not a wild animal. It doesn’t know competition with wild relatives, doesn’t hunt, doesn’t live in large territories, and doesn’t fight for a mate. However, a bear still needs to exhibit natural behavior: climbing, running, swimming, chewing, digging the ground. And for this, we create semi-natural conditions.”

Less Is More

What makes an ideal enclosure? The Guidelines for Keeping and Breeding Wild Animals in Captivity and Semi-Free Conditions, for example, require an enclosure for one bear to be at least 200 square meters (2152 square feet). 

The residents of Bila Skelia have plenty of space. Except for Chada’s pool, which looks more like a jacuzzi. Sometimes visitors glance at the small pool sideways: maybe she needs a bigger one? 

“Chada’s pool is small so that she doesn’t drown. If something happens, we can’t pull her out by the scruff, but if we sedate her with a A syringe dart is a tool used by veterinarians to administer injections to animals from a distance. Some syringes are thrown by hand, while others are launched using a pneumatic device. dart syringe, she’ll drown before we can reach her,” explains Yehor.

Standards for keeping bears in developed countries don’t require larger spaces or deeper pools. Like in Ukraine, documents only outline minimum requirements for animal care.

To make a bear’s habitat in captivity comfortable and safe, the specific needs of the furry tenant must be considered. A bear cub to be released into the wild requires one set of conditions, while an old, injured bear needs completely different ones.

In developed countries, professional associations directly influence who keeps wild animals in captivity and how they do it. They issue licenses or fine irresponsible owners. Such associations, Yehor asserts, monitor not only compliance with regulations but also the safety and comfort of the animals. In Ukraine, this process is controlled solely by government agencies. Since not every employee is an expert in wild animal behavior, prohibitions or permissions are mostly based on numbers alone.

Tasks of Reconfiguration

The sanctuary currently has five enclosures, one of which is unfinished. So-called boxes, small enclosures for veterinary procedures, are attached at the edges.

“We don’t have direct contact with the bears. We don’t enter their enclosures — it’s dumb and dangerous. All the enclosures and boxes are connected through gates that we can open remotely. This allows us to move an animal to another enclosure if needed and enter the vacant one to clean, for instance,” explains Maryna.

These bear relocations resemble a game of sliding puzzles. For example, if you need to bring a log into Synochok’s enclosure, Chada, who lives next door, is asked to move into the box connected to her enclosure. Then Synochok is coaxed into Chada’s enclosure. Workers can enter the vacant enclosure once the gate behind the animal is closed. But how do you “ask” a bear to move?

“This is where veterinary training comes in,” explains Maryna. “When an animal is under human care, you inevitably train it to do something, like responding to its name. When we call the animal by name, the bear knows that it will get a treat if it comes to the box or another enclosure. It stays there for a while and then returns to find more water in the pool, a new toy, or something else enjoyable.

There is also target training. This method uses a predator’s natural reaction to an object. The target is an item shown to the bear. We attract the bear’s attention with a ball on a stick. It comes to the box, and we carefully give it food with special tweezers. Next time, we show the target, and the bear understands: ‘Oh, great, I need to move, I’ll get fed, and meanwhile, my slaves will clean up my home.’”

Bears are also trained to respond to gestures. For example, at Bila Skelia, closing and opening a fist is a request to show teeth. In other centers, animals are sometimes asked to stand on their hind legs and show their front ones, or lie down. This helps veterinarians quickly examine the animal from a distance before deciding on sedation.”

Wild Relationships: Abuse and Love

In the enclosure next to Synochok, there’s a commotion. Something heavy splashes into the pool. It turns out that two bears, Liubochka and Mykhasyk, have jumped into the water simultaneously. Liubochka was rescued from circus performers along with Synochok, while Mykhasyk lived in a cage at a restaurant complex.

Mykhasyk was taken from the restaurant in 2017. He was an apathetic, depressive, melancholic young bear, recalls Maryna. A year later, Liubochka arrived, then a two-year-old cub. Initially, she was also very stressed because she had lived without her mother, and bear cubs find orphanhood very difficult. Liubochka would bang against the cage, jump, and fall. The sanctuary decided to introduce Liubochka to Mykhasyk while they were still adolescents. The two quickly bonded.

Maryna says, “In their relationship, Liubochka is the leader. In nature, females are often more active and compulsive, which is true not only in bears. Liubochka always checks things first and then brings Mykhasyk along. If she fixates on something too much, he distracts her. He hugs her, sleeps next to her, calms her down. He might even give her a slap. There is abuse among bears, after all: the stronger one is the leader. However, since Liubochka is emotional and energetic, she sets the tone of the relationship. If Liubochka wakes up in the middle of winter, she’ll wake Mykhasyk because she’s bored. If she wants to swim, she’ll approach and push him into the pool. Sometimes Mykhasyk reaches for an apple in the pool, and Liubochka sneaks up on him and kicks him in the ass! He goes into the pool! While Liubochka runs away.”

In the wild, bears live solitary lives. Despite this, they sometimes display behavior akin to friendship. For example, an old and a young bear might travel together in search of food.

Usually, bears practice “free love,” but some pairs always meet during the breeding season and can maintain relationships for decades. There are also so-called spring and autumn romances: young bears that are not yet ready to mate just walk together.

Wolves, too, occasionally live at Bila Skelia: there was a polar wolf named Dzha and a gray wolf named Dora. Dzha passed away, and Dora moved to Greece, into even better conditions. Currently, a separate enclosure is occupied by Nymphadora, a half-wolf, half-dog. Poachers took her from her den as a cub. When the grown animal began to show aggression, the owner gave her away to activists.

“I see your nose, come out!” calls Maryna, but Nymphadora doesn’t want to come out of her den. Relationships between bears and wolves vary.

Dzha was friends with the bears. “She and Liubochka used to race each other!” recalls Maryna. “With gray Dora, there was no reaction. However, Liubochka wanted to play with Nymphadora, but the wolf got scared. She’s still getting used to her neighbors.”

Stereotypy in Bears

Liubochka approaches the fence, shifting from one paw to another. This is stereotypy — repetitive movements that an animal might perform to cope with stress. Animals that have lived in poor environments — cramped, dull places where they have nothing to think about or engage with — are particularly prone to stereotypy.

As Maryna explains, “Stereotypy is part of natural behavior. However, when an animal lives in unacceptable conditions, this behavior becomes more frequent and intense, sometimes leading to self-harm. Stereotypy won’t disappear entirely — the issue is the frequency and intensity of its manifestations. Maybe Liubochka is showing stereotypy now in response to positive stress: she’s curious about our dog, wondering where the bucket was taken… Most importantly, she’s not in a cage, so she can stop and do something else at any moment.”

It’s crucial to give the animal the opportunity to choose: to hide in the den if they want, to come closer to visitors if they want, to rest, or to swim. “The most important thing that circus animals lose is the ability to choose,” says Maryna. “They live in cages and don’t have the choice of where to sleep or when and what to eat. Now they have a choice. But for many rescued animals, it is very difficult to act independently and in a more natural manner.”

There’s a splashing sound coming from the next enclosure. It’s Chada, a Tien Shan bear — an endangered subspecies — splashing around in the pool. Chada spent 20 years in a cramped cage, 12 of which were in a circus.

Chada arrived at Bila Skelia in 2019. Now 26 years old, she is considered quite a respectable age for a bear. The caretakers say she acts like a fussy grandmother. Unlike the others, Chada couldn’t care less about me and my camera. She’s focused on splashing in her mini pool.

This behavior is a remnant of stereotypy, which transitioned into a softer form. In this case, it plays a positive role: it keeps the old animal active and prevents apathy.

Yehor explains, “She has her own ideas about the water level in the pool: Chada stops splashing at a certain level. Sometimes, she lowers her head and checks: if the water is too low, she snorts and shows her displeasure, as if to say, ‘Servants, replenish my water.’ They all see us as their servants.”

How a Bear Played a Joke on the Electrician

Whenever I try to film Synochok up close, he turns his back on me. It’s his sense of humor, Yehor and Maryna suggest. Do bears really have a sense of humor?

“They find something primitive funny, like ‘someone slipped on a banana peel,’” says Maryna. “They get happy when you drop something or trip. Bears have this experience, too: they fall, and you can see they can extrapolate it. They see you climb a ladder and watch. If you fall, they are delighted. If they have a chance to shake the ladder, they will.”

“They once had such an opportunity,” Yehor shares. “An electrician was working with cables on a ladder near the box where Mykhasyk was. I was standing nearby to ensure everything was safe. Mykhasyk approached, stretched out his paw, covered it with his other paw, and reached for the ladder to yank it. I noticed this. The electrician got down, and we moved the ladder. Mykhasyk was so frustrated! He even turned away. He didn’t like that his joke was ruined.”

This isn’t the only such instance, Maryna laughs: 

“Bears quickly get used to the electric fence. Some never touch it. Once, we closed the bears in the small enclosures and were working in the large ones. Our dog Rafik came with us and was walking near the electric fence. The bears realized there was a chance Rafik might get into trouble. They gathered in a row and held their breath, trying not to scare him. The dog eventually ran into the electric fence, and they jumped joyfully because they figured out how the system works.”

“Once, we had young bear cubs, and until a certain age, we would enter their enclosure,” Yehor continues. “They always tried to knock a person out. One would distract you while the other approached from behind to push you. For them, it’s a game.”

“There aren’t any complex abstractions here, but it’s already humor. It’s also a sign of intelligence,” concludes Maryna.

Bear Appétit

There is probably no other large animal around here with as varied a diet as the bear. Bears are omnivores: they can feast on both plants and meat, depending on what they find. In search of food, they spend most of their active day and can walk up to 40 kilometers (~25 miles) a day. Therefore, even in semi-natural conditions, you won’t see a dedicated feeder for a bear.

“We need to support their natural feeding behavior,” says Maryna. “Several times a day, we scatter different types of food around the enclosure so the bear has to search for it, just like it does in the wild.”

A significant part of the bears’ diet at the sanctuary consists of seafood, as well as vegetables and fruit: carrots, apples, oranges, pumpkins, and watermelons. Additionally, nuts, boiled eggs, occasional meat, cottage cheese, and a bit of dog food (for its mineral additives) are included in their diet.

“If it’s food we give only every few days, we enter the enclosure and hide it. Sometimes, we freeze fruit or fish in water and throw the ice into the pool for them to retrieve. Sometimes we bring fish in a wheelbarrow and place it under stones. It starts to smell, this grossness. They love that… Bears can even hide their food to let it age. They do this in the wild, too. So, if you see a dead deer covered with twigs, you better run,” Maryna explains.

A Bear in a Rehabilitation Center: What’s the Point?

When a bear that needs to be rescued or whose owners are giving it up is identified, sanctuaries and rehabilitation centers look for a place for it. The organization that has the appropriate conditions and expertise takes in the animal. Rescuers communicate with the owners and prepare the veterinary documents for transportation. They arrive with veterinarians who quickly examine the bear and administer sedation. The bear is transported in a special transport cage. Once at the rehabilitation center, the bear initially stays in a small enclosure to gradually get used to the new conditions. Only then does it move to an enclosure proper: first, a small one for adaptation, then a bigger one.

“We sign an agreement with all owners that they will not keep bears anymore. We aim to indirectly preserve the species by reducing the demand for keeping bear cubs. Therefore, we do not take a bear if we know that new ones will take its place,” Maryna explains. Yehor adds, “We want to contribute to the formation of civil society. Such people will not remain silent when they see animals being kept in terrible conditions.”

The co-founders of the sanctuary emphasize that proper rehabilitation involves more than rescuing an animal from negligent owners; it involves more than simply transferring it from one cage to another.

“This is a field based on science and standards that must not be violated,” says Maryna. “The number of animals kept in unacceptable conditions in captivity does not change. However, there are changes in attitudes. It is now frowned upon to go to a restaurant with a bear in a cage, and in large cities, people have started to look down on circuses with animals. The UAnimals campaign to ban traveling circuses with animals has been effective. The existence of bear sanctuaries — such as in Domazhyr and the Synevyr Park — has also made an impact. People visit rehabilitation centers and then question why a bear runs in the grass and winters in a den in some places, while elsewhere, it sits on concrete in a cage. They write about it on social media. People are gradually changing their attitudes toward wild animals in captivity.” 

Sopha looks over my shoulder. The apples I gave her have been eaten a long time ago. And now she grabs the edge of the lens with her big soft lips and then runs her tongue along the lens. Well, the lens has been licked by a horse. And yet, even so, everything I point it at here seems alive and bright.

Sopha lives in Pegasus shelter among the meadows of the Dnipropetrovsk region.

In addition to horses, there are other domesticated animals, cats, dogs and wild animals — more than 800 in total. How come a small village in central Ukraine had a whole animal rescue centre? Let’s go and find out.

They came from everywhere: Nulyk and goats from the garage roof

About an hour’s drive from Dnipro, and we turn off the highway to Malozakharyne. Having passed it, we roll along the dirt road away from human dwellings. Finally, we hear barking among the paddocks. We have arrived.

“You come here and you have a different mood. You say hello to everyone. It has its own atmosphere that cannot be expressed in words,” smiles Sava, the head of the shelter. “We have raccoons over there, they are inhospitable, always asleep. Let’s go to the pigs instead.”

Okay, let’s go to the pigs. We pass by the stables, and behind them there is the area where the pigs live: a few domestic ones, many Vietnamese and in the last compartment there is a wild boar.

“This wild boar escaped from the farm and we took him,” says Sava. “Only Vova comes in to clean. And no matter how long I’ve been working here, I’ll never go into the stall with the wild boar! To be honest, I’m afraid of him. Come closer, I’ll introduce you.”

The boar’s name is Soma, and he quickly turns to familiarity when we get to know each other: he demands to be scratched. There are special brushes for this purpose. Sava asks the very Vova to scratch Soma’s hair. The man says: “I’m going to him: ‘Soma, Soma!’ — and he obeys. But just in case, I come in with a shovel to shield myself if he gets in a bad mood.”

Soma’s mood is normal. Nearby, goats are being let out of the barn. Sava points to a few of them: “These are Kherson goats — we took them off the roof of a garage in Kherson.”

When the Russians blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, many locals from the Dnipropetrovsk region bought boats and went to take the animals, the man says. Then about 200 dogs were brought to Pegasus from the city. Among them was little Chapa. Sava recalls: “We were approaching Antonivskyi Bridge. The Ukrainian Armed Forces warned us not to go there because there was constant shelling. We took the risk. As we were leaving the bridge, we saw a dog running. The shelling starts, and we hear it flying… Can you imagine the adrenaline! We stopped abruptly and tried to catch the dog. She was already shell-shocked, afraid of sharp sounds. I grabbed the dog, and two or three shells fell not far from us.”

The local cats have health problems. All those who could be given away were adopted. There are many more dogs. Pegasus can no longer accept stray animals: there are no enclosures. Now they take only evacuees from the hot spots. “This one here is deaf, from Bakhmut, he’s shell-shocked,” they introduce me to an old dog who lives in front of the quarantine house. “And this is Nulyk — do you know why? He came from the front, from nul (‘nul’ is a zero front line in Ukrainian).“

30 rescued pegasuses 

“Well, let’s go!” a smiling woman approaches me with a bucket of carrots.

This is Olena Rusina, the founder of the shelter. We take the bucket with us to the stables, and Bambi immediately reaches for a carrot. Her nose is slightly crooked, but she hardly seems to care. As a baby, Bambi had a slim chance of survival. With a nose defect like hers, it is almost impossible for a horse to learn to eat on her own. Bambi was put up for sale and bought by Pegasus. Here, she had grated vegetables and fruits for a long time and was taught to eat. And now she calmly bites off an apple from my hands.

The first horses appeared in the shelter in 2013, back in Antonivka. Now, in Malozakharyne, there are 30 of them. 

All of these horses have special needs. None of them can be a “workhorse” — some because of their age, others because of their health. Almost all of them were bought from their owners, who had given them to slaughter.

“We received calls from people saying that cows, sheep, horses needed help… But do you understand how difficult it is to make such a serious decision? They need a place, care and maintenance. Even a healthy horse is expensive to keep, but here there’s a sick one! We took the risk, though, took them and it worked out,” Olena recalls.

Among the horses, there is the shelter’s namesake, Pegasus. He had a leg injury, so it was clear to the owners that the stallion would not be able to carry loads or riders. Now he lives here.

Probably, Liubasha, the mare, has the most problems. She suffers from hypoxia attacks: it is difficult for the animal to breathe, and she has to be connected to an oxygen machine. The mare Adele has cancer. The horse Black, a former athlete, can no longer rest on his hind legs as before. These animals should live in a specialised facility.

The shelter is planning to build a hospital for sick horses. It will have a soft cover and all the conditions for a veterinarian to provide on-site care to the animal. 

Ship of the desert

In the stables, another interested eyes follow me. It’s Yasha.

“He is really like a ship of the desert, the way he looks down on us,” Olena says. Despite his absolutely friendly appearance, a camel is a dangerous animal. “I’m always worried that he won’t bite off someone’s head,” says the owner of the shelter. “We give him watermelons, and he bites them into pieces right away. It’s barely a mouthful for him!”

Yasha came here three years ago. Before that, he lived in a zoo complex near Odesa. There were also predators there: when Yasha got cystitis, they decided to give him to them for food. Pegasus employees took him to the shelter.

“Oh, how we treated him… It was like hunting. We waited for him to lie down to rest, and the nurse had to give him an injection quickly in his ass. And after that, he was hunting for the nurse…”

Only Masha, the donkey, is not afraid of him. Indeed, Yasha virtually raised her. So they decided not to separate them.

A shelter that appeared at the dacha 

Olena had a technical degree, and at the age of 33 she decided that she needed something else. The woman used to treat stray animals and had already settled several dozen dogs at her dacha. That’s why she went to study veterinary medicine: “I wasn’t going to work in a clinic — it was necessary for my dogs,” says Olena. “The girls from the training helped me: after classes, we quickly got into the car and went to the dacha. We treated everyone there and came back. When everyone started using the Internet, it became easier to meet people like them. Someone saves someone else, and then there is nowhere to take them! You can’t throw them away!“

That’s how, in 2006, an animal shelter was set up at the dacha that belonged to Olena’s father. However, it soon became too crowded for them. 

In 2012, all the dogs moved from the dacha to the village of Antonivka. Pigs and goats appeared already there. However, they also had to move from Antonivka: in May 2016, a mudslide hit the shelter and carried the dog kennels and enclosures for a kilometre and a half. “The water in the house was up to our necks. We carried the animals upstream in our arms,” recalls Yana, a shelter worker. People and animals quickly moved to Malozakharyne, to higher ground. They started building Pegasus already there.

Well, the father, the owner of the dacha where it all began, was sceptical at first. Now he takes part in the life of the shelter: “Dad helps in ways you can’t even imagine! He used to grumble and grumble, but now he fosters dogs at his place. And I also have a trick: we don’t actually cry here, but I learned how to do it before my dad. We had puppies with enteritis. I called him, crying, and said, ‘Dad, please take them in…’ And he agreed, and even took them to the clinic for treatment. In fact, my father is proud of me.”

Olena’s son Mykhailo also helps the shelter. It was he who built the first enclosures and made the fences for the paddock and the bathing area for the horses. When I come to the shelter, Mykhailo is just building a hospital for sick animals. 

Working days and nights 

Pegasus is divided into 4 zones: the so-called wild zone, cat zone, dog zone and the farmyard where domestic animals live. This zone is a local feature and even pride: Pegasus is known among animal rights activists as one of the largest shelters with domestic animals. 

“A weekend can be a couple of hours. And you are happy to have these two hours. But you stand there and don’t know what to do with them. Because you’re used to being on all the time,” says Olena. She moved to the village. There is no other way: “Sometimes patients are brought to the shelter at night, and I pull the nurse right out of bed. Or something happens to someone, and it’s already the dead of night! I call the doctor and she says, ‘I’m at home, it’s okay, go ahead!’. And then we take the animal to her… This is my way of life.”

Yes, a nurse works at the shelter, a doctor visits, and a blacksmith comes to the ungulates. Olena’s main task is to plan everything, especially the logistics: who to take and where to go. People from the village work directly with the animals, everyone knows each other.

As I pull out the recorder, they gather in the yard near a pile of firewood. Everyone is focused, and one of the workers is aiming at the pile with a net. It turns out that they are waiting for the cat: he needs to have his procedures done, but the sly one is hiding under the firewood.

“If I’m free, I also work with the animals,” Olena says. “The horse Ruslan, for example, must be driven on ropes for the health of his legs. Sometimes I go to the dogs — they need attention and communication. I don’t do the same thing every day.”

Multiplication problems 

Olena shows me her bank statement: “Wow, how far I’m going negative! I have 36 thousand in credit. This is the clinic, hay, pharmacy… And there are not even petrol costs here!”

The shelter lives on donations, and sometimes charitable foundations help with food for dogs and cats. However, hay is hard to get:

“People are more likely to donate for cats and dogs,“ Olena explains. “And if you write that you have nothing to feed your horses… It’s harder. If we had money, when the mowing started, we would have bought hay in advance — the price was better then. That year, a bale of hay cost 50 hryvnias in the season, and now it costs 75, 80, 100… A bale is food for one horse or cow per day. For a camel — 2 bales. For 3 donkeys — 1 bale. But hay is the hardest thing to raise money for.”

Yana and her savages

“Lena acts with her heart. And I am responsible for rationality,” says Yana.

The woman has been working at the shelter ever since it appeared in Antonivka. She and Olena met on New Year’s Eve in 2012. They have been working together since then. 

“I was 17 years old,” says Yana, “and I worked as a dispatcher for a transportation company. Someone threw away a puppy and it was running around near my work. It was so cute. I realised that the dog would get hit by a car if it stayed there. So I started looking for a place to take it. I found a shelter, and they said: either pay money or come to work. I promised to work for them. However, the work turned out to be completely different from what I had agreed on. At that time, someone poisoned the dogs in that shelter. I worked off by collecting corpses.”

Yana did not study to be a veterinarian, but she mastered the protocols for treating wild animals on her own. The shelter gradually began to accept wild injured animals: foxes caught in traps, birds with broken wings. Then exotic animals from nurseries and private zoos came. Most of them arrived sick. 

“Our raccoons are very fat,” says Yana. “It’s my mistake. Shall I put a treadmill or something? There are ropes… Dusya is so clumsy when she chases me away with her hand. I can tell all raccoons apart, they are completely different to me.” 

A steppe marmot, foxes and two wolves have apartments in the “wild zone”. Common raccoon dogs are their neighbours. Despite their names, these animals and raccoons belong to different families. Both are predators, but these are the raccoon dogs that particularly do not mind biting an unwary visitor. Olena laments: “Sometimes schoolchildren come on excursions, but the children manage to stick their fingers into the enclosure. They stand like this: ‘A raccoon, a cute one…’ And they put their fingers inside!”

Amber eyes stare at me from the last enclosure in the “wild zone”. It’s a wild fox. When someone set fire to the dead wood, it got caught in the fire and was completely burned. This fox is the only one who has at least a small chance to return to nature. The other foxes of Pegasus will not survive there: they are either very injured or have long been accustomed to humans. 

Yana plans to equip their enclosure so that the conditions are as close to natural as possible. Perhaps the foxes will even be able to build their own dens. 

***

The car sways gently on the dirt road again, moving away from Pegasus. Iryska, Yana’s dachshund, climbs onto my lap. And now someone is trying to lick the camera again.

Kabachok used to live in Donetsk region. Where exactly is classified as the militarymen found him on a mission. He’s a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig by breed, but more like a dog in his behavior. Out in the field and on the road, he used to live in an empty ammo box. Now, he has a much more sizable home. On his way to the shelter, Kabachok was accompanied by eight soldiers and two journalists.

“He’s completely tame. Eats everything, but we’re watching his diet so he doesn’t gain too much weight. Kabachok should be ‘sportivo’,” says Andrea Cisternino, owner of the Rifugio shelter in Lisovychi.

This svelte Italian in rubber boots used to be a fashion photographer. Now, he has chosen a different mission — taking care of hundreds of animals in northern Kyiv region.

For nearly a decade, Rifugio has been a place for homeless and poorly-treated animals to find a new home. It recently had many new arrivals from Kherson oblast, hotspot towns and villages, and also — pets of soldiers who had to leave for the front lines. Right now, the shelter is housing approximately 500 animals. Nobody knows the exact amount — once the number broke 400, the workers simply lost track. 

NOSE TO THE GRINDSTONE

“At six in the morning I light the wood stove by the kittens and puppies,” tells Natalia from Liubymivka, “while another coworker heats up the one in the kitchen and starts making porridge. Then, I clean up and go help her out. We give the porridge to the dogs, then feed the pigs and clean their enclosures. And the other person goes to wash the dishes, while I go wash the eyes of our kittens. I do whatever other procedures the animals need. After that, we go to clean the dogs’ enclosures. Switch out their water and all that.”

Work continues deep into the evening.

Natalia and her colleague take care of pigs, cats, and dogs. Three other men work with horses, goats, and sheep. The owner also often takes up the pitchfork, but he also has other duties, such as looking for funds to support the shelter. Andrea says, “My main mission is to make sure all of these animals are well-fed.”

FROM ITALY TO LISOVYCHI

Next to the enclosures at the edge of the forest, Andrea also built a photo studio. There’s not much to show right now: the corkboard only has two pictures pinned to it. One of them depicts the dogs Chupi and Bruno, the other — the supermodel Helena Christensen. Both photos were taken by Andrea. In Italy, he took pictures of top models and sportscars. Right here is where he keeps the old and weathered photographer passes for “Formula-1” and various runways.

In 2009, fashion photographer Andrea married Vlada, a Ukrainian, and moved to live with her. By that time he was already involved with animal rights activism, and he was shocked by the scale of dog hunting in Ukraine.

Back then, Kyiv was preparing for UEFA Euro 2012. In order to “clean up the streets”, homeless animals were simply put to death. Andrea says that politicians turned a blind eye to dog hunters — what’s more, the government at the time was directly complicit in animal extermination.

In Kyiv, Andrea got in touch with volunteers who took care of homeless animals. “There was one time I got a call from a volunteer who was taking care of 35 dogs. That day, 20 of them had been brutally killed. And this is just one of dozens of cases that I have documented. Every day, I brought more evidence to Ukrainian politicians, and each time they shrugged and said they knew nothing about it,” says Andrea.

After that, he began publicly protesting animal cruelty in Ukraine. In response, dog hunters published Andrea’s private information on their websites. Since then, the Italian Embassy has assigned him a personal bodyguard.

Andrea and his wife Vlada set one question for themselves: what constructive steps can be taken to rescue homeless dogs? That was when the couple decided to create a shelter — but founding a shelter required massive funding.

What happened next was something straight out of a movie.

On Christmas Eve in Milan, Andrea met a woman who read one of his interviews and asked to meet with him.

“We had coffee together and talked for an hour and a half. Then she asked me if I had any pressing concerns. I said that we had many, but the most important was purchasing land so we wouldn’t get kicked out. She immediately wrote out a check for the required sum. It was a Christmas miracle.”

Rifugio began construction in 2014. At first, Andrea started taking in homeless dogs.

In the very first year, the shelter was struck by a fire. 71 animals died that day. Andrea shows a tattoo on his arm. “Always in my heart.” It’s dedicated to the dogs who passed that day.

The police found no signs of arson, and so no case was opened. But eventually, the culprits came forward of their own accord with an apology. They said they didn’t know what Andrea was doing and why. This apology confirmed Andrea’s suspicion that arson had indeed occurred, but his lawyer convinced him not to sue.

Andrea did not give up because of the tragedy. On the contrary, Rifugio now houses five times as many animals as back in the day and not just dogs. The shelter gets by mainly thanks to Italian sponsors. The shelter also established connections with Ukrainian volunteers. The townspeople, Andrea says, help out as well.

“The locals nowadays see our shelter very differently, all thanks to years of hard work. With our Italian friends, we organized free sterilization days, and people would bring their pets to us. Some of the townsfolk work here, too. If all I used to see before in Ukraine were dog hunters, then now we get daily phone calls asking for help, or people bringing in homeless animals on their own,” Andrea tells us.

And to think that very recently, the shelter had a very real chance of disappearing for good.

40 DAYS OF OCCUPATION

“I was cleaning the stables when I heard two russian fighter jets overhead. One of them started descending. I thought it was going to shoot, and that’d be the end of our shelter. The jet got so low to the ground I could see the pilot,” Andrea says as he describes the spring of 2022.

Later in the afternoon of February 24th, the shelter was abuzz with fighter jets and helicopters. Aircraft battles took place right above the village. Andrea shows us an audio recording of the explosions, “Day and night it was like this, day and night.”

“One of the worst moments happened when we heard that russians were running out of food,” says Andrea. The shelter ran out of food too, on occasion, whether for humans or animals. Even though the staff were making stockpiles a month before the invasion, by the middle of March they had nearly run out.

Andrea lost 12 kilograms and even broke two ribs.

“I was cleaning the stables, slipped, and broke two ribs. Naturally, I couldn’t just go to the russian or chechen soldiers to get patched up. I grit my teeth and waited for Ukrainian soldiers to liberate our territory.”

Natalia lost weight too: she gave part of her rations to the dogs she was taking care of. The shelter staff knew that aid for animals was coming through to Kyiv, but between Lisovychi and the nearest blockpost lay thirty kilometers — a distance nobody could risk braving at the time.

Andrea received offers to evacuate on more than one occasion. Even during the occupation, the Italian embassy insisted he leave the country, even going as far as to develop a plan and receive approval from the military…

“I asked, ‘Will you take everyone — my employees and animals, too?’ They said no, just me. So I stayed with my animals,” tells Andrea.

In total, Andrea spent 40 days in occupation, though he only managed to count that after the fact.

On April 2nd, he says, at a very unusually quiet time he heard a car horn. Strangers were at the shelter. Did the russians climb the fence? One of them shouted in Italian, “Andrea, hello, it’s me!”

“Russian soldiers speaking Italian? Impossibile!” recounts Andrea.

In reality, standing by the gates were the Italian journalist Claudio, translator Tetiana, and a Ukrainian volunteer. Waiting by the fence was a car with supplies — and a Ukrainian flag flying on the roof.

“I thought I was dreaming. Only when Claudio hugged me and I felt the pain, I remembered my broken ribs and understood — this is real.”

MEET THE VIPS

The first large animal at the shelter was a cow by the name of Margo. Now, she also has company in Mikaela. And right next door are two more esteemed signoras.

“Frieda, Frieda, Kapla!” Andrea calls out. Finally, two considerably-sized pigs waddle out of the barn, squinting from the sun. “Oh, buongiorno!”

Above all else, these refined dames love getting mud baths and scratches. The pigs can tell people apart and even respond to pet names.

Aside from domestic pigs, there are also two Vietnamese ones: the already familiar Kabachok and Harry. Though he is Kabachok’s closest relative, their personalities couldn’t be more different. Harry can only be found in the barn, sleeping in the hay. He’s chewing in his sleep, showing off his sizable tusks. Sleeping is his favorite hobby.

“Harry befriended a duck around here,” says Andrea. “Other ducks were bullying her, so she found safety in his company. They sleep and eat together.”

Marcio, Ser, Mina, Mami, Annushka, Roza, and Lola are the sheep community at the shelter. They arrived here from large farms where animals are raised for meat. That’s also how the shelter found their chickens, geese, and ducks.

The goats peek out from the barn. It almost looks like they want to give an interview of their own — and boy, do they have stories to tell. Take Berbek, for example this billy was wandering on his lonesome by the belorussian border when the locals found him and suggested Andrea take him in.

Mary the pony was on her way to a slaughterhouse when Andrea picked her up. Later it was found that Mary was pregnant when she got rescued: she gave birth to Op, and he is no pony at all. The stallion lives in the same enclosure as his mom and is nearly thrice as big as she is.

The racehorse Voron would have similarly ended his career at the slaughterhouse were it not for the shelter’s staff. Thelma and Louise came under Andrea’s care from the mounted police. Another mare by the name of Tatanka used to live in the same pasture with them — she died in 2023 because of a russian rocket that fell next to the shelter. Tatanka’s heart stopped then and there.

“And this one here is from Lisovychi,” Andrea shows us the gray Baron. “He spent his whole life as a workhorse. A woman from the village brought him in because two of her sons enlisted in the army, and she couldn’t take care of him on her own. Careful, he bites! Though… seems like he’s in a good mood today.”

Cats’ apartments

The cats have a separate space from the other animals. Here we can find former strays: some were brought in by Andrea, others by volunteers. As soon as I step in through the door, they cling to me and start purring. Some are trying to climb into my lap, some — onto my shoulders, and all of them are sniffing me curiously all over. You can pick them up by the armfuls, that’s how many there are. 

The feline enclosure is comfortable and fully furnished. People from Lisovychi donated a sofa for the cats specifically. Andrea points to the WC sign: “Our cats can read.”

Outside, Natalia is hard at work. “Cats were trying to drink from the mop bucket, I took it outside,” Andrea says in Italian. “Ah, I had to run to break up the dogs and forgot all about it,” Natalia replies in Ukrainian. “I understand his Italian,” she says. “How? Sometimes through a translator. And then, after a while, you learn to understand each other bit by bit.”

She picks up a stick off the ground and leads me to a completely different world — the world of dogs.

POTAP, DON’T BOTHER BABAIKA!

“Everyone! Quiet down, kids!” Natalia waves the branch around in front of the enclosures.

“You call them ‘kids’?”

“I mean, that’s what they are. Though we call some by their patronymic, too. We’ve got Dina Nikolaievna and Tamara Petrivna.”

The dog enclosure reminds me of a long apartment building, full to the brim with canine residents of all kinds — cheerful and melancholic, friendly and not so much. I can point at any dog here at random and Natalia will know its story from beginning to end:

“I assign them enclosures by personality. Here we have six dogs, and they all get along just fine. We could probably add another calm dog here no problem. When Harold moved in, he was an instant leader. Doesn’t bully anyone, it’s just that he might go around sniffing everyone’s bowls — and only when he’s done, everyone starts eating… And the more aggressive ones, you need to group them up with dogs that have character. They set each other straight. Dina Nikolaievna, shush! Potap, don’t bother Babaika! And this one is Hera. Hera, come here. She’s really smart. Hera, who was making all that noise in the enclosure, hmm? Who did that?”

To feed them all, the workers cook 300 liters of porridge every day. 

“Two of us use mopeds to get around, takes about 40 minutes to feed everyone. And this enclosure we call Verkhovna Rada. Liashko, come here! He’s the most talkative of the bunch. That one’s Poroshenko — the chubby one,” Natalia introduces us to the rest of her dogs. “Behave, I said!” she shouts to the “deputies”.

Many of the dogs here were brought by volunteers from frontline territories. For example, this shepherd from Mariupol was found among ruins by a couple driving out of the city. They just picked it off the road and took it with them.

There are also arrivals from Kherson. Andrea already arranged for four Kherson dogs to be transferred to Italy. Two more are getting ready for their trip.

“We had two dogs come in from Kherson recently,” says Natalia. “They lived in apartments. Enclosures like this were foreign to them. Stasik here… He spent all his time in his dog house, curled up and crying. So we brought him a proper bed and made a little room for him. Two others from Kherson are going to Italy soon. Stasik is already there.”

Later we run into Cefina, an American Staffordshire terrier, who made herself at home in the boiler room. There’s also the playful Lulu and the giant, though no less playful, Lucky. In Rifugio, these dogs are waiting for their masters who are defending Ukraine on the battlefield.

A meeting with Viktor Shelvinsky, the owner of Free Wings rehabilitation centre for birds in the village of Kozhychi in the Lviv region and this year’s winner of the All-Ukrainian Animal Protection Award, begins with a bird rescue: 

“Now we are going to visit Mrs Nina. She called and said that she had an injured bird —  a small sparrowhawk. If the bird cannot escape, it means it is helpless and needs help. We have to take it away.” 

Viktor is regularly asked to help with birds: four times this day alone. He has a degree in veterinary medicine, so he provides the necessary assistance himself, taking the birds to his place. However, if necessary, he can consult by phone or video. 

Animals should live in dignity 

When we arrive at Nina’s place, Viktor examines the hawk: it turns out that it has a fracture of the right wing ulna. Later, Viktor tapes the bird’s wing to prevent it from getting even more damaged on the way. And then he puts a special cap on the hawk’s head that covers its eyes called a klobuk. Such caps were once used to calm game birds during transportation and hunting. Nowadays, the klobuk plays the same role for an injured hawk. 

Next, the bird will undergo tests, treatment and rehabilitation. If everything goes well, the hawk will soon be back in the sky, free to fly. 

According to Viktor, the most commonly injured birds are corvids, Accipitriformes, geese, ducks and owls — the most common species that live close to humans. They usually get injured because they collide with power lines, cars or windows. 

Injured birds are given first aid and, if necessary, taken to a clinic. After treatment, their fate depends on their condition. Completely healthy and viable birds are released into the wild. 

“If a bird has an injury incompatible with its vital activity, for example, it has no legs, the only option is euthanasia. Because this animal will not be able to live decently even in artificially created conditions”, says the veterinarian.

A home for yourself and the birds

Free Wings Rehabilitation Centre for birds has been operating for 22 years. It is arranged around Viktor’s house. When the head of the centre was choosing a place to build the house, he also took into account the fact that birds should settle there for treatment and rehabilitation. 

Birds recovering from treatment need more space, so they are transported, for example, to the Galician National Park or to the Roztochia Biosphere Reserve. There are all conditions for different species of birds there: there is a ban on hunting and, in general, there is almost no human influence. There are also lakes for waterfowl and flight aviaries for the red-listed birds with disabilities.

“If I had, for example, 36 hectares, I could turn all this into a large, full-fledged complex that provides assistance, from veterinary to post-rehabilitation. But this is unrealistic because there is no such resource. That’s why we cooperate with ornithologists, biologists, national parks and so on,” says Viktor. 

The rehabilitation centre operates on a volunteer basis: Viktor maintains it with his own money and charitable donations. Recently, thanks to UAnimals, the centre received food from its Czech colleagues. The ornithologist says he is happy to receive such help because birds need a lot of food and it often costs a lot of money. Viktor invests about 48 thousand hryvnias in the centre every month. 

Schoolchildren are frequent guests of the centre. Other people also come to see the birds. It happens that, after a visit, they take a bird that needs constant care. Viktor gives them only when he realises that it is a balanced and conscious decision. Emotions can play a cruel joke in this case, since caring for an animal and living with it are the responsibility that not everyone is ready for. And of course, to keep a bird at home, you need to create appropriate conditions. 

Illyusha, Lokhudra and Taziks

There is no quiet place in Free Wings — you can hear the birds singing, which does not stop for a moment. Currently, 63 species of birds live there. Some of them walk freely on the territory. Others have not yet fully recovered from their injuries, so they live in aviaries for now, but will eventually go outside as well. 

The birds at Free Wings include goldfinches, siskins, turtledoves, jays, barn owls, jackdaws, bullfinches, waxwings, various types of parrots and more. There are Nile or Egyptian geese, who came to the Lviv region from the Askania-Nova Reserve after rodents in the fields had been poisoned there; two long-eared owls with amputated right wings, they lost the ability to hunt and will not survive without human help; 21-year-old parrot Mark, who lived all his life in the same family and was abandoned because of the war; two peacocks that guard the territory of the centre no worse than a dog — an English setter. 

There are also three ravens in the centre: two of them live together as they were able to establish communication, and one more, a new arrival, is currently in a separate aviary in quarantine. All the ravens in the centre are called Taziks and given serial numbers, like in royal families. For example, Tazik XVII is currently in quarantine. His predecessors have already been cured, and 14 of them have even been released. 

In addition, Phaps bronzewing pigeons from the Kharkiv region live in the centre. According to Viktor, they are already set up for family life, so the males start building nests to win over a female. They are not limited to one — they have to build 5 to have a choice. 

Svayno, a pheasant evacuated from the zoo in Mykolaiv, lives in the same aviary with Kharkiv pigeons. These birds were placed together because they coexist without any problems. Other residents of the rehabilitation centre are settled according to the same principle. 

Svayno, Mark and Tazik XVIII are exceptions to the rule because most of the birds at Free Wings have no names. 

“I call only those who are many years old by name,” explains Viktor. “This parrot is 38 years old and he has been Ilyusha all his life. This is important for him because Ilyusha is an intelligent bird. He builds a bridge of trust to me because he hears his name. All the others — falcons, owls, and so on — do not need this.”

There is also Valera and Lokhudra, a pair of parrots that used to live in the Donetsk region. They are long-time residents of the rehabilitation centre. Viktor was forced to take them, like many other exotic birds: 

“I didn’t want exotics. I used to work at the National Academy of Sciences, ornithologists and I dealt exclusively with Ukrainian wild species. It seemed to me that exotics were the responsibility of people who had got such pets. But exotics came just like war: if it already exists, you are faced with the fact.” 

According to Viktor, unlike Ukrainian species that are adapted to living in our nature, keeping each exotic bird requires huge resources: houses with constant heat and ventilation have to be built, specific food is needed and much more. In his opinion, you should not revolve around keeping such birds only in a cage — you should help them adapt to living in the wild. 

The best and most pleasant thing, Viktor says, is to release a bird when it is ready. That is why the head of the rehabilitation centre does not get attached to birds. 

“You cannot love this bird. You can only do your best to return it to its environment,” he emphasises.