“All night, I packed every crevice of the car with supplies and dog food. I was afraid to close the door in case it made too much noise. Outside, there was the crackle [of gunfire] and machine-gun bursts.” This is how Maryna from Kherson, the owner of eight dogs, prepared to leave the occupied territory. She had no intention of abandoning any of her animals.

NGOs often retrieve pets left behind by their owners in frontline areas — sometimes still tied up. Yet, some people are capable of heroic feats to keep their animals fed during the occupation and ensure they’re brought along when escaping. Which cases are more common? We can’t quantify it, but we can share a few stories of people who evacuated with their pets.

Escaping Occupation with Eight Dogs

A house in northern Portugal near a eucalyptus forest. Not long ago, it was uninhabitable, but Maryna Skrypnychenko and her husband have already made significant repairs. Their first task was fencing the yard to prevent their dogs — Yolkin, Yozhyk, Yoryk, Martyska, Mukha, Motya, Mysha, and Chucha — from running off. All of these dogs were once strays roaming around the outskirts of Kherson. One by one, Maryna took them in. But when the occupation began, her home city turned into a living hell. For her own safety, she needed to leave. With eight dogs, though? Here is how she did it.

A House Outside the City

We had a large, beautiful home near Kherson on the banks of the Inhulets River. I organized yoga seminars and art plein-airs there. It was truly a bright, welcoming place. This winter, it served as a shelter for our soldiers.

Recently, we learned that our home no longer exists: it took a direct hit and burned down.

Living on the outskirts of the city, I often saw packs of stray puppies, and I would take in the weakest ones. I first adopted one dog, then another, and eventually, I ended up with eight. My husband built them kennels and enclosures, and they had everything they needed.

A Month in the Basement

When the war began, russian forces immediately entered Kherson. My husband, a sailor, was away on a voyage. I took my mother from Kherson, thinking it would be safer outside the city. But on the very first day, we had to move into the basement. We didn’t know it yet, but missiles and drones were already overhead… And so we spent a month in that basement with the dogs.

They reacted badly to everything. They were terrified of explosions and still hate loud noises to this day.

About a week into the occupation, I saw russian paratroopers — they seemed to emerge from the ground. In full gear — it looked like something out of a movie! One of them asked, “Why haven’t you left?” I was too scared to respond. Then he said, “Get back in the basement and stay there.”

Neighbors gave me some fish, which I boiled and fed to my dogs, both the house pets and the strays outside. Now, my dogs refuse to eat fish at all.

Sometimes, I would go to a neighbor for eggs. Once, I pretended to be going for eggs again but actually went to spray-paint something on a garage. I called a friend to talk with me on the phone — if they shot me, at least she’d hear it. My first canister ran out, so I pulled out another and finished writing: “russians, go f*** yourselves.”

The Departure

The invaders had taken vehicles from everyone in the area. My car survived only because the garage was part of the house, and they hadn’t realized it was there. But if I wanted to leave, I’d need to get the car out without drawing attention. I hesitated for fear they’d seize it, as they had others.

A friend found a farmer who was trying to protect his fields and had managed to negotiate a work permit with them. He called and told me, “Be ready.” All night, I packed every crevice of the car with supplies and dog food. I was afraid to close the door in case it made too much noise. Outside, there was the crackle [of gunfire] and machine-gun bursts. Who or what they were shooting at, I had no idea.

Around six in the morning, the farmer called again, “Pull out of the garage but don’t open the gate. Wait until you see an armored vehicle with the letter Z, then open it.”

The farmer somehow persuaded the invaders to send an armored vehicle to the dacha [summer house] neighborhood, supposedly to “pacify” the soldiers who were causing destruction everywhere. When the personnel carrier arrived on my street, he called again, “Go now.”

By then, I had collected all eight dogs. Half of them had never been inside a car before. I stuffed them in, layered blankets on the back seat, and my mother lay across them because there was no room to sit. The dogs, frightened, sat still and quiet.

It was “fun”… I drove through twelve invader checkpoints! At each one, the soldiers inspected the cars. As I approached a checkpoint, I rolled down the windows. Eight snouts would immediately stick out, and the invaders would just say, “Get the f**k out of here.”

I reached Kherson. By a supermarket, women with children would gather each day in cars to form a convoy — it was less frightening to travel together. I joined the convoy. As soon as we left Kherson, we got stuck; a battle was underway, so we couldn’t move. There were about 200–300 cars, full of children and dogs… Eventually, the entire convoy turned back.

But I thought, “To hell with it. If I die, so be it.” And I went on.

It took us twelve hours to reach Koblevo — a drive that would normally take two and a half hours.

The dogs sat quietly like mice in the car. Only in Koblevo did I let them out for the first time… But I was still scared; there were explosions even there. Well, it was insane. No romance to it at all!

To Portugal With Plywood for a Window

At the customs checkpoint on the Romanian border, I rolled down the window and got out. Two of the dogs immediately jumped out. We had already been waiting in line for 3–4 hours. People were bored, so my chasing after the dogs entertained everyone, and at least we got a bit of exercise.

In Romania, I was met by so many volunteers! When they saw the animals, they started taking pictures and giving me food for them… I told them I had no space left to carry it. “Take it anyway!” It moved me to tears, I still remember it.

The first night, I planned to sleep outdoors. I set out eight bowls for the dogs, but the police came over, asked me not to sleep outside, and escorted us to a hotel. There, in the restaurant, they moved all the furniture, laid out mattresses, and set up beds for refugees.

I thought, “If anyone makes a sound, all eight dogs will start barking…” So I decided to sleep in the car near the hotel. I started the engine to charge my phone, then someone came over, and I got distracted and stepped out. The car had a button on the armrest that locked the doors. The dogs pressed it, locking themselves inside a running car! Until four in the morning, I tried to coax them to press the button again, but nothing worked. Finally, the volunteers broke a window so I could climb in. I patched it with plywood and continued across Europe.

Since then, the dogs have refused to get into a car. I don’t force them.

I remember sitting in that basement when my husband called and said, “I can’t live in a world without you.” That gave me the strength to leave. If they kill me, then so be it, but hiding in the basement, trembling, and waiting for them to come for me was too much. So, I gathered everyone and started the car…

Our home is gone, but the animals are safe. I’m happy that all our dogs are still with us. 

Six People, Five Dogs, Four Cats, and a Turtle

A family from Selydove in the Donetsk region is a large family with quite a lot of pets. Sviatoslav Torkhov worked in the mines while his wife Yuliya raised their three children: Oleksandr, Artem, and Alla. Yuliya’s mother lived nearby. This summer, they were forced to make drastic changes to their lives.

After the Airstrike

Yuliya: On June 23, there were two strikes on our town. Around 4 a.m., a shell hit the garden. Our roof only had some tiles slide off, and parts of the ceiling collapsed. It was still fixable, so we started repairs. My husband was on the roof, and the children, my mother, and I — with the dogs — were in the yard. At 5 p.m., there was another strike, this time hitting just beyond our yard. The windows shattered, and the ceiling collapsed. My husband fell from the roof, sustaining head and rib injuries. We were standing below, shielded from the debris by the garage, but all of us suffered concussions. The news said it was an aerial bomb, though we don’t know exactly what kind.

Our dog Stitch hid with us behind the garage while his mother, an Alabai named Lavyna, was near the fence with her little puppy, Misha. From a distance after the blast, I saw Lavyna lying there. I was afraid to approach, thinking she might be dead. But then the rescue workers checked on my husband and asked, “Would you like to check on your dog?” I finally went over and realized she was still breathing.

I called her name, “Lavyna, Lavyna,” and began petting her. She had hidden her puppy beneath her. She was badly concussed but had no other injuries and gradually started to come around.

Then, we began considering where to relocate and started searching for a place to live. We traveled a lot, and it was heartbreaking to make the animals wait for us for so long each time we left.

Aside from Lavyna and her puppies, we also have Stella, a mixed breed, and Nora, a shepherd dog, plus four cats — Busya, the Scottish Fold, Alisa, and her kittens, Borysych and Bagheera. And there’s also Burger the turtle.

Finding a way to transport all of them was a real challenge.

Sviatoslav: Finally, we found a contact for UAnimals and arranged for help transporting the animals. Volunteers Mariya Holovina and Andriy Zhdanov came. We remember them fondly to this day.

They prepared crates and laid hay in the car. I placed the animals in the crates, and Mariya and Andriy helped get them into the car. The animals didn’t whimper or try to escape — it was as if they understood everything would be okay.

In Petropavlivka

Sviatoslav: Few places allow families with children to stay, let alone with pets! With our large family, it was tough to rent a place where we could live with both kids and dogs.

I’m a miner, so we needed to be close to a mine. We finally found such a place.

Yuliya: We moved to Petropavlivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region. I arrived three days early to settle in and prepare to welcome the animals. I waited for them and settled them all in. Now they’re doing well.

The cats, who always lived in our trees, are still up in the trees. Lavyna adores our children but barks at strangers. If she runs outside, she won’t harm anyone, but people are still afraid of her — she’s huge. So she stays in an enclosure.

Stitch also wanted to run around freely and couldn’t be made to stay in one spot, so we had to add him to the enclosure. Still, the dogs found a way to sneak out to the yard.

Nora, the shepherd, is also a guard dog but is attached to us, having been with us since she was a puppy. Stella, an older dog, will give you her paw if you approach her — she loves attention.

How could we abandon them? We love them and didn’t bring them into our lives just to leave them behind. That thought never even crossed our minds.

Sviatoslav: Soon, we’ll bring my mother-in-law here; she’s still in Selydove. Then our family will be even larger. If you’re in a similar situation, don’t give up. Take your pets with you since pets are family members.

The Cat Who Celebrated Kherson’s Liberation

Yevheniya Akubekova lives in Kherson. Before the full-scale invasion, she worked as a cashier in a shopping mall. When the full-scale war began, the mall was destroyed, and she lost her job. Yevheniya had two cats, and just before February 24, 2022, she gained a third — the cat was left temporarily by her sister, who went to work in Poland. As it turned out, all three cats weren’t afraid of water: they traveled by boat and even went fishing. Yevheniya shared her experience of moving from place to place with her three cats.

The Start of the Occupation

We had two cats — Zoya and Varyushka — and in 2022, we also had my sister’s cat, Joey. He stayed with us through the war and occupation but is now back with my sister.

When Kherson was occupied, my husband and I didn’t leave the house for two weeks. Then, the cat food ran out, and our human food supplies were also running low. I was baking bread at home, but we were out of oil and sugar. So, we started going out to buy food. On April 9, we left for our dacha.

The left bank of the Dnipro is dotted with river channels and dachas on islands. We stayed there up until December 5. We planted a garden and caught fish. There was no electricity in the city, but we had it at the dacha.

The cats were terrified of the shelling. They still get scared and hide. It was horrifying when the orc [russian] planes flew overhead to bomb us. They flew so low, right above the power lines. The poor cats didn’t know where to run, and neither did we, crouching down in fear. I called for the cats, but they were panicked. When they heard a plane approaching from afar, they would dart inside the house.

Apart from that, the cats had a wonderful time there. My husband would fish and feed both our cats and the neighboring ones. The price of pet food skyrocketed. At first, locals raised prices on the remaining supplies, then the russians brought in more and sold it at triple the price.

Our biggest softie is Joey. He is affectionate and friendly. He followed me all over the island; everyone knew he was my cat. Liza was a stout little thing, bustling around chasing snakes and mice, getting leaner and more agile. Varya, the oldest, loved sitting in the attic — she had her own little sanctuary up there.

The cats even started bringing grass snakes into the house. They knew all the little holes and cracks where the snakes hid. I yelled at them to stop dragging those poor snakes inside!

The cats loved it there, and it was hard for them when we returned to the city. Joey didn’t eat for a week out of sadness.

Every weekend, I would take a boat to Kherson to buy essentials — oil, grains, or sugar — the things we couldn’t grow ourselves. My husband and I would pass through the Ostriv microdistrict. The orcs had a checkpoint there. They’d check our bags and phones. Once, we were boarded by an orc boat, they searched us and checked our passports and phones.

Liberation

I remember when Kherson was liberated. I went shopping by boat. We all knew each other, everyone else was also going. So we hired a taxi, we were on our way, and we saw a pickup truck with Odesa license plates and a guy in camouflage waving at us. I thought, “What a bastard, they’ve seized another of our cars, and he’s even waving.” I was so stressed I didn’t even notice his uniform was different! I arrived at the market, and it was buzzing: “They’re here, they’re here!” We’d been warned not to gather in groups because it might be a trap — the invaders could be disguising themselves… I said, “People, don’t gather!” They asked, “Don’t you want it to be true?” “Of course I do,” I replied, “but we were warned it could be a provocation.” I didn’t believe it. And Kherson was abuzz.

When we returned to the island, the talk was the same: “Did you hear?” “Is it true?” When it became clear that our forces really had come, we gathered everyone on the island and celebrated. Each family brought whatever they had, and we sat together, sang, took photos, and cried. Even the cat found us and sat at the table with us!

Then, the islands became a target for shelling. They used drones to watch where people were moving and fired at those spots. Soon everyone had fled, and we left in a hurry too.

We left our belongings behind but took the cats. Three carriers, two backpacks.

The dacha is now under orc control. We don’t know if we’ll ever return. Is it mined, is it destroyed? At least we have our animals with us. 

On June 5, 2023, at 8 p.m., hydrometeorological center workers measured the water level of the Dnipro River at 532 centimeters (209 inches) above the datum level of the Kherson stream gauging station*. 

This was a normal water level for early June.

Approximately six hours later, the invading troops blew up the dam of the Kakhovka Reservoir on the left bank of the Dnipro. Villages and towns downstream began to flood. 

A year after the dam’s destruction, eyewitness accounts have more or less settled into coherent stories. Just ask, and they flow like the water that burst through the destroyed dam. Witnesses recall the flood: they saved themselves and rescued those who were helpless from the muddy water.

June 6

Natalia from Oleshky 

It was half past four in the morning. I heard my son talking to someone on the phone. Then I heard the sound of him running. I realized something had happened. He came rushing in and said, “Mom, they called from Kherson, they say the Kakhovka HPP has been blown up.” My God!

We were at home in Oleshky. My father was 94 years old. He was immobile, so we couldn’t leave. No one believed this could happen. We decided to move to the second floor of a neighbor’s house. They had left in 2022, and we were looking after their dog, a German shepherd named Archik. So we moved everything there, dismantled my father’s bed. We wrapped him in a sheet, and my son carried him like in a sack while I helped him. That’s how we got to the second floor. And the water was coming in at an incredible rate…

Oksana from Kherson

At five in the morning, my son called from Canada, “Mom, what’s happening? We all know about the explosion.”

At first, the water was rising slowly. First, it was ankle-deep, then knee-deep. People were panicking and didn’t want to leave their homes. No one believed the water would reach the rooftops.

8 a.m. — 660 cm (259 inches) above datum level

Hanna from Mykolaiv 

I remember that morning like it was yesterday. I am a fitness coach, and sometimes people call me even in the middle of the night. So, I decided to take a break and turned off my phone. I woke up to a million calls. What’s going on? A volunteer friend from Kherson called, “Hanna, the flooding has started.” We left for Kherson.

Katia from Kyiv 

In the morning, I was told over the phone that the UAnimals evacuation team was leaving for Kherson in 30 minutes. I threw a warm sweater and a bunch of gadgets into my backpack. I forgot my toothbrush, though.

The situation was new, and no one knew how to handle a boat. Even if we got one, what would we do with it? Everyone was so scared.

Alisiya from Kyiv

People immediately started asking if the Kyiv Animal Rescue Group (KARG) would go to evacuate animals from Kherson. Of course, we decided to go. But we needed an extra boat, chemical protection suits, waders. The whole day was a rush and hustle. We finally left in the evening, the car packed to the brim.

3 p.m. — 796 cm (313 inches) above datum level 

Hanna from Mykolaiv

When it all had just begun, we didn’t see the big flood — perhaps a puddle. We were walking around with an animal catcher, leisurely collecting dogs. Then another driver of mine called me, “Get here immediately!! The entire Ostriv is flooded!”

Our eyes were as big as saucers because we had packed the car full of cages with dogs by then. We started heading in that direction — and realized there was nowhere to go! We were literally floating. In front of us, soldiers in a jeep were cutting through the waves, and we were “rowing” along with them.

I prayed the car wouldn’t stall at that moment. As soon as we made it out, the soldiers ran up to us, “Are you volunteers? Take the animals!” So we added a cat, a tomcat, kittens, and a German shepherd. And that’s how we headed to Mykolaiv.

Natalia from Oleshky

We have the Chaika River flowing nearby. People rushed to the shore to see if the water would reach us. When the river started to overflow, they ran back to their homes.

We had two German shepherds with us: our neighbor’s Archik and our Luna. We had to get them to the second floor as well. They didn’t want to go and were scared. While we were getting them up, Archik bit my husband. It was impossible to go through the door; we set up a ladder and passed the dogs through the balcony. They even jumped from the second floor into the water. Oh, the way we caught them! Archik jumped when the water was knee-deep, and my husband and daughter caught him wading through the water. The next day, Luna jumped, and my son caught her already from a boat.

The russians themselves were in shock, running away! People said many of them drowned.

Two russians floated past us on an inflatable mattress, both with rifles. They moored to a fence, one took a puppy from a yard, ripped off half a slate sheet from the roof, and continued paddling with that piece of slate.

The russians had been taking boats from people, not just before the flood but probably two months before it. So, we dragged our boats behind the houses and hid them using greenhouses. We dumped grass and sand and then covered them with rails. From above — with drones flying around like crazy —  it must have looked like a pile of firewood.

And thank God we did that. When the water was above our knees, we dismantled the rubble and prepared the boats. 

7 p.m. — 867 cm (341 inches) above datum level  

By sunset, the water had already covered the fences.

June 7

7 a.m. — 1025 cm (403 inches) above datum level

Katia from Kyiv

We arrived in Kherson with the UAnimals evacuation team. As soon as you step out of the car, you hear powerful explosions. If you’ve come from Kyiv, the contrast is immediately apparent. It seemed like I could hear an explosion every five minutes.

Alisiya from Kyiv

The first animal we rescued was a little mouse clinging to a bush. It was sitting on a twig in the middle of the water; I took it and handed it to a volunteer. The mouse was weak and needed to be nursed back to health.

A temporary animal shelter was specially opened in Kherson for this mission, where several organizations, including ours, brought animals.

The phone was constantly ringing, people were sending addresses and asking for help. We created a rough plan for the day from these addresses, but finding those places was difficult: house numbers were underwater, the navigator was inaccurate… But we did the most rescuing while looking for those addresses. There was barking from somewhere, meowing from another direction, chickens clucking, roosters crowing, and you couldn’t leave anyone behind!

3 p.m. — 1048 cm above datum level 

Hanna from Mykolaiv

We were heading towards Chaikovskoho Street. We waded knee-deep into the water, but then it got too deep to continue. We started collecting dogs, grabbing them, and putting them in carriers. Then some boys ran up, “Help our friend!” A young man around 20 years old with cerebral palsy came out. He was struggling to walk, falling, and getting back up. He had two German shepherds with him. He cried, not wanting to part with them, but his home was flooding. We took the dogs from him, and he promised to come back for them later. The water kept rising, and we retreated further, rescuing animals from the water.

That day, we saved the most famous dog. Do you remember the photo of a German shepherd hugging the leg of its rescuer? We named her Bahira. We were evacuating Bahira from Kherson.

Photographer — Danylo Pavlov / Reporters

Oksana from Kherson

We went into the water up to our necks, hurting our arms and legs. Whenever a cat or dog surfaced, we pulled them out of the water. There were ordinary people, and we didn’t even ask their names. People were dragging their belongings, volunteers were ferrying elderly people, dogs, chickens, and goats on boats.

Rostyslav from Kherson

I took two young women from the Mykolaiv Animal Protection Center — an animal catcher and a veterinarian — in the boat. We started from Naftohavan. You could float above the fences there: the water was over 5 meters deep, with only the attics sticking out.

Hardly anyone was “cruising around” there: the russians were just 400 meters away. We saw a garage for a truck, and next to it, a dog was drowning. It turned out later that its leg had been broken and healed incorrectly, so it couldn’t swim. We grabbed it by the mane, pulled it out, and began to resuscitate it. It didn’t breathe for 15 minutes. The women never gave up. The dog survived.

June 8

7 a.m. — 1060 cm (417 inches) above datum level

Alisiya from Kyiv

We had already filled our carriers with animals and were heading back to the rendezvous point. Suddenly, a rooster crowed. We looked around and saw a lot of chickens in a tree. Misha climbed up to get them, and at that moment, shelling started. The place where we would have reached in a minute was peppered with shrapnel. Thus, it turned out that the rooster saved us.

We found a hiding place for a while. We sat there and saw a boat floating by without people… What had happened there?

Then we continued with the chickens, but there were too many — about 20. There was no room for them in the boat. We found an empty plastic barrel floating in the yard and filled it with chickens. We went back like this: a motorboat, towing a rubber boat, and tied to that, a barrel full of chickens.

It was easy to go out on the water for the first couple of days, but then the shelling started. The police and the military commander began prohibiting it… One would allow it, another would not. We spent a lot of time getting permissions.

Rostyslav from Kherson

We were rescuing animals in Zymivnyk. There were many drowned dogs because people had left them chained up.

In one barn, kittens were floating under the roof. The barn was barred, so they couldn’t get out. We broke the roof and got them out. We named one kitten Jacques-Yves Cousteau, and the other remained nameless.

We also transported a goat named Torpedo by boat. We called her that because she was fast and kept running away from us. She somehow got to the second floor of a house, onto a veranda; we barely managed to catch her.

And then there was such a touching reunion between this goat and her owner! The woman stood beyond a checkpoint, and we brought the goat. She shouted, “Zorya, Zorya!” The goat replied, “Meh-eh-eh!” and ran to her owner, who ran to the goat. Such a reunion!

Hanna from Mykolaiv

The third day was the worst. We were rescuing animals in Naftohavan. They were covered in mazut and dirt, and everything smelled awful.

I was amazed at how our people came together. I had never seen volunteers help each other like this. It was probably the only day in the history of animal protection organizations where they were stealing animals from each other. I barely managed to get a dog out of the water before the carrier with it disappeared. I said, “People, you can’t do this!”

I was wearing summer shorts and a T-shirt, and that’s how I swam. But that day, people from Odesa gave us an expensive yacht, and from then on, we rescued animals on that boat.

We sailed around Ostriv, scraping the bottom against everything: you couldn’t see where you were! We would reach a fence, climb onto it, and then climb onto the roofs. That’s where we caught the animals.

We saved a dog I remember the most. I climbed onto the roof and fell through. My friend Yulia went ahead and said, “Here’s a dog standing on a board in a straight line, its paws bleeding.” The dog wanted to live so much that it stood on that plank for who knows how long.

As soon as we got the dog to shore, a woman took it in and is still happy with it. Imagine, people from shelters were not the only ones waiting on the shore; there were also people taking animals for themselves.

Once, I received an address: 24 Dorofeyeva Str. — 12 dogs, 20 cats. We sailed there, scraping this yacht, and a woman from the window said, “I told you, I won’t go anywhere without my animals!” I consider people who acted like this Anya heroes. We evacuated her with her cats and dogs.

Oksana from Kherson

I posted the first photos on Facebook, and people started reaching out to me. They said they would take the animals. So I started bringing the rescued animals to my garage, my apartment, my son’s apartment, and the apartment of my neighbor who had left. At one point, I had 80 cats at once — wet, dirty, scared. We rescued these cats, let them out, fed them, and went back again. And so it went until nightfall. There wasn’t even time to drink water!

June 9

7 a.m. — 1035 cm (407 inches) above datum level

Natalia from Oleshky

The water started to recede. By 11 a.m., we saw the first step and decided that we wouldn’t get another chance if we didn’t leave before the invaders recovered.

We got into the boat, loaded the dogs. I shouted, “Pray! Pray in any way you can!”

As we passed our house (crying), we could only see the roof. It was very painful.

We reached the river, and there… It was like an ocean! I had never seen so much water before. Believe me, was terrifying.

You could see the entire city of Kherson. Both my son and husband worked as captains, so they knew the area. We reached Dachi. Thankfully, it was our guys, our soldiers, who met us.

Archik, the dog, my father, my son, and my eldest grandson stayed in our boat and were brought separately. We took Luna, our German shepherd, and got into another boat with the soldiers, who brought us to Kherson.

3 p.m. — 1011 cm (398 inches) above datum level  

Katia from Kyiv

We got caught on an electric wire, and our boat started to sink.

Anything could be underwater. If it was an industrial area, there could be a train, and you wouldn’t know.

A man passing by saved us. He said, “I can’t come closer because I’ll get caught, and we’ll both go down to the bottom.” But he still approached and cut the wire. He mentioned that two soldiers had recently been dragged under a barge and died. No one was safe there.

June 11, 3 p.m. — 900 cm (354 inches) above datum level

June 12–18: A week after the explosion

Alisiya from Kyiv

We worked in Kherson for about two weeks. We were wet the entire time. We were constantly in the water; our clothes barely dried overnight. The water was disgusting, full of dead bodies. Then the rains started. You’d come out of the water only to be drenched by the rain. Vadym and Misha would get into their wetsuits in the morning and keep them on until night.

Once, we had to make a choice. Two dogs were sitting on a pile of debris, not coming into contact with anyone. We needed to catch them with a noose, but we only had one. We understood that while catching one dog, the other would escape. We chose the dog missing part of its paw. The other ran off across the boards and debris. The rescued dog is still looking for a home. After the initial hype wave, the interest in these animals faded.

Katia from Kyiv

I decided to make a film from the footage we shot. It was supposed to show only what I saw. I wanted these images not to be forgotten. I think few people can imagine what really happened there.

When I arrived in Kherson, I realized how hard it was to live there. It looked like hell, honestly. In such conditions, you revert to basic needs: where to get water, food… And people are united around one goal — survival.

Some people stay in Kherson to feed stray animals. I know an old woman, Tetiana. She says, “The animals wait for me every day at two. And I must go feed them.”

June 20. When the Water Receded

3 p.m. — 560 cm (220 inches) above datum level 

From the Hydrometeorological Center report: as of June 23, the water level has stabilized at values characteristic of the Dnipro River’s hydrologic regime.

Oksana from Kherson

When the water receded, everything was in a terrible condition. The stench was unbearable! Many animals had died. People were carrying everything out of their apartments; there were heaps of trash everywhere. All those refrigerators, washing machines — everything was ruined and useless. On top of that, there was shelling. The heat was unbearable, and we were delivering humanitarian aid and animal feed in bulletproof vests.

Natalia from Oleshky

We kept the neighbor’s German shepherd until volunteers sent Archik to Poland to his owner. We also had to give away Luna because we had to move to an apartment in Mykolaiv. We didn’t leave until we found her a place. She now lives in the Mykolaiv region with a man who has a house and garden. He sends us videos showing how she’s doing.

Hanna from Mykolaiv

For me, Bahira symbolizes this tragedy. My friend Liudmila Melnykova from the Moyi Zhyvi Sobaky (My Living Dogs) Odesa shelter took care of her for a long time. Bahira was not young and had to spend two days in the water. She could barely walk. We hired a rehabilitation professional who worked with her daily.

She couldn’t tolerate other dogs or cats. She only loved people. It was tough to find her a home. We searched for a year—a whole year! The whole world knew about her; everyone asked, but no one took her.

Only in February did I take her to the parents of a friend. She doesn’t leave her owner’s side now. She just loves people so much.

Oksana from Kherson

I kept several cats; I couldn’t part with them. Now, I have nine cats. And 28 outside. I know all of them!

They come every morning. I feed both cats and dogs. Every evening, I cook two 5-liter pots of porridge. I give one to my neighbor, Aunt Tania. She distributes food to the animals but is afraid of the shelling; she always asks if there’s an alert or if it’s over. I say, “All clear,” — and she is already running with those buckets.

Oksana looks into a cage with a kitten

Natalia from Oleshky

People usually sympathize, but some say, “Well, we were also under shelling, so what?” The scariest thing was hearing people cry, “Help!” at night — almost the whole night. Even talking about it now gives me chills.

This has become a part of us.

***

Told by: 

Hanna Kurkurina — powerlifter, athlete, animal rescue volunteer, living in Mykolaiv. 

Natalia —  a resident of Oleshky, formerly a telephone operator, now living in Mykolaiv.

Alisiya Polykha — animal rescuer with KARG (Kyiv Animal Rescue Group). Accompanied by Mariya, Mykhailo, and Vadym. 

Rostyslav Kulyk — volunteer with the Strong Because Free organization, owner of a pit bull and three cats from Kherson.

Oksana Synenko — medical worker, volunteer, and animal rights advocate, living in Kherson.

Katia Krokha — documentary filmmaker, videographer for UAnimals, living in Kyiv. 

Interviews by Nataliya Pendiur — 508 cm (200 inches) above the datum level of the Kyiv stream gauging station.

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.

Hydrological levels at the Kherson stream gauging station were provided by the Hydrological Forecast Department of the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center.

Main photo: Associated Press. Other photos provided by the interviewees and KARG, unless otherwise stated in the caption to a photo.

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.

Vuhlyk is a shelter for domestic animals and pets with branches in Kherson, Dnipro and Mykolaiv regions. Its history began in the Lviv region, but a thousand kilometres to the east, the founder of the shelter, Oleksandra Havryliuk-Levytska, found large areas for grazing domestic animals. And also people who were sympathetic and supportive of her work. And a lot of sun.

 Because of the war, Oleksandra and her family had to leave their new home in the Kherson region. They moved by several cars — along with chickens, sick dogs and cats. However, Vuhlyk’s branches in eastern Ukraine are still operating.

Oleksandra Havryliuk-Levytska told UAnimals media how she managed to create a network of centres, resuming the work literally from scratch, how the Kherson shelter lives under occupation, and what lies ahead for Vuhlyk.

About children, animals and sterility 

As a child, I dreamed of a horse and a dog, but my parents did not support the idea of taking care of pets. They cared more about the cleanliness of the house, even to the point of sterility. Now I can understand my parents’ position: the four of us lived in a small apartment in Truskavets, my parents were constantly working, and the pets would have to be taken care of. 

A child cannot take responsibility for caring for animals. Now, I can’t tell my daughter either: “You have a pet — take care of him: clean, cook, walk him.” 

But I believe that any child can benefit from having animals at home. This is confirmed by many studies by the World Health Organisation. Children who grow up with animals have fewer health problems, such as allergies. Their immune system is stronger and their mental health is more stable.

These studies have been published recently — they didn’t exist back in my childhood. Instead, it was believed that everything had to be disinfected for kids, and that any animal brought dirt. I was reminded to wash my hands ten times a day. I had numerous food poisonings because in such sterile conditions the body could not develop immunity to certain pathogens.

However, my child has “eaten” enough dirt. Sometimes she spends half a day hanging out with chickens, hugging and kissing them. She loves chickens.

Physically, my daughter is as healthy as possible. However, she has an autism spectrum disorder, so communication with animals is very useful for her. When the weather is good, we go to shelters, and I let my daughter sit on the horses’ backs. I am against horse riding, but a child weighing 20 kilograms will not harm a physically healthy horse. 

I let my daughter communicate with animals to her heart’s content. These are my dreams that have come true. 

We have about 40 cats — some are blind, some are sick, and some are very old. There is also an old-timer dog, Bobchik. He was already old when we were given him, and more than 10 years have passed since then, so I’m even afraid to think how old he is now. And there is a dog called Babuletka, also very old. She has demodicosis, so we treat and care for her ourselves. 

Most of the rescued cats and dogs live in Vuhlyk, and I only take home those who will not survive in the shelter.

About the first rescued ones — Roger and… Vuhlyk

In my third year at the institute, I was involved in sports. One day, I went to buy a suit for a competition and, on my way, I met a boy in an underpass selling a puppy. It was a pit bull terrier that no one wanted to take because it was born the biggest among his siblings. People were afraid that the dog would grow up to be too aggressive. Of course, I didn’t buy a suit, but gave the money to that guy and took the dog. It was my first dog, Roger.

Because of Roger, I had a lot of conflicts with my parents. They had their plans for my future: they wanted me to go abroad and settle down there. It was hard to do with a dog. So they asked me to give the dog away, to find “other hands” for him. 

Because of that situation, I didn’t talk to my parents for almost a month: when they gave me an ultimatum, I said I wouldn’t betray my pet. We stayed together where we were.

As for the first animal rescue, it was a kitten. I found him more than 15 years ago. Back then, I had just started dating my husband, and one evening we were walking the dogs and heard loud meows. My husband ran to the basement and pulled a small black cat out from under the bricks. We named him Vuhlyk. 

On creating a shelter, conflicts and fire

I have always wanted to save animals, but I’ve also realised what a great responsibility it is. In Truskavets, my husband and I were constantly in conflict with our neighbours because we kept three pit bulls. Although even my parents were joking: “These dogs would rather lick someone senseless rather than bite them.” 

When we started taking in stray animals, we had to move to the village. For this purpose, in 2009, we bought an old, inexpensive house in the village of Brodky and started renovating it.

I thought that on my own rural plot, I would be able to minimise conflicts with people, but it turned out to be not so easy. The villagers had their own ideas about how we should live. And some of the neighbours used to say about us: “When will they burn down?” 

And so, on January 8, 2018, a fire really happened in our house with the rescued animals. At five in the morning, the neighbours from across the street knocked on our door, shouting that our first floor was on fire. We could not rescue our cats from there. But other neighbours helped us to get the horses, pigs and cows out.

For some reason, the rescuers arrived with empty cars. Having no water to extinguish the fire, they first stood and watched it burn. Time was lost. Then they started pumping water from a nearby pond. Although some of the stables on the site were preserved, nothing remained of the house. 

We have no evidence that it was an arson. The police put forward a version of spontaneous combustion due to a short circuit. And I don’t want to think badly of people. 

At that time, I had a six-month-old daughter, and it became an extremely difficult challenge for our family: being left homeless with the baby and all the animals. 

About new shelters, new conflicts, and the value of support

After the fire, a woman from a neighbouring village, Natalia Turuta, helped us a lot. She arranged for other people in Krasiv to sell us the land in instalments. 

At first, there was nothing there: no stables, no water. Just empty land. After the fire, I thought there would be no shelter. I would definitely not be able to revive anything on my own. But Natalia and her husband began to build a fence on that territory, and after a while, we were able to move the animals there. 

The Turutas became administrators of the shelter, continued to care for the animals, and took on organisational tasks. They believed in our project and helped to keep it alive. And when the full-scale invasion began, these caring people went to the front. 

Later, we also started having problems with locals in Krasiv. Although the shelter was located outside the village and could not bother the residents in any way, it somehow did. People complained that the animals were defecating and stinking. By the way, pig farms, where animals are fed for slaughter, are also mostly located close to villages, but for some reason, the stench of their excrements does not bother people.

In our conflicts, it came to a village meeting to evict the shelter from the outskirts of Krasiv. They explained that it was supposedly a recreational area (in fact, it wasn’t).

I started looking for new locations to move the animals to when the locals ran out of legal ways to force the shelter out and started causing harm. For example, someone destroyed the bridge we built on our own to get to the pasture across the river. 

All our branches were formed after we left Krasiv. I realised that I would not be able to resist the pressure. We tried to provide “foster care” for our animals in different parts of Ukraine and looked for other stable housing options for them. The issue of finances was always acute because somewhere the rent was raised.

So, we moved some of the animals from Krasiv to the Mykolaiv centre. It already existed: earlier we were looking for new places to expand, and a friend of ours recommended this location. We do not disturb anyone there, as the neighbouring village is far away.

We took another group of animals from Krasiv to the Dnipro branch, and another one — to the Kherson shelter. Both locations were established that way. 

I would not have opened any other centre if it were not for the opposition to those who wanted to expel us. I can thank these difficulties because they helped Vuhlyk grow. Now, we have three shelters, and we are building the fourth one. Previously, there was a farm in Vasylivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region, but now it is very noisy, and it is often struck with missiles, so this branch has already been relocated to the village of Balivka for two years. 

Here we have good relations with the village council and local residents. They allow us to graze our livestock in different areas, sell at a cheaper price or give us crop residues. Vuhlyk needs more extensive support, but it is very nice to know that we are not harassed. 

Who lives in Vuhlyk

We have a lot of dogs and cats. There are also many horses, cows, and pigs. There are goats, sheep, and even ponies and donkeys, which are much smaller in number because they get into difficult circumstances less often than others. Most of all, we have cows and pigs. 

We take in as many animals as we can afford to keep. There were cases when people simply gave us their domestic animals because they were moving out of their homes. Also, 5 goats rescued from the front line by Azov soldiers (our volunteers took the animals from Kharkiv, where the military had taken them) were admitted to the shelter free of charge.

However, in 99.9% of cases, we buy back domestic animals from their owners. When people are in difficult financial conditions, it is important for them to have this money in their budget. I cannot blame them. 

However, it is difficult to determine a fair price for an animal. When we start raising funds for the redemption of an animal, we have to justify its cost, transportation costs, etc. to our followers. Our organisation is not an animal repurchasing business. When, for example, they put a price of 40,000 hryvnias for a horse, my answer is: “Sorry, we can’t afford it.” The idea of rescue is lost. 

About ahimsa and other principles of shelters for domestic animals 

I know only one shelter in Ukraine that is similar to ours — Rifugio. The rest have a different format: they are engaged in farming, selling milk and cheese. 

There is such a concept as “ahimsa” — harmonious coexistence with a cow. The calf stays with its mother and drinks the milk that was created for it. And a human only shares the milk with the calf, but does not take it away completely. There are shelters with such philosophy in Ukraine, and they rehome many animals.

Our philosophy is different. We want the animals at Vuhlyk to live the life they are meant to live —without being exploited for life. At Vuhlyk, not a single cow gives milk. And only those animals that arrived at the shelter pregnant give birth.

When a cow comes to us after a dairy farm (if the animal is healthy), at the beginning, she goes into heat on schedule: every 21 days. But later on, the sexual cycle does not take place as often as it does on farms. A cow or mare that does not feel males around stops entering regular “heat”. 

To prevent fertilisation, we castrate male animals. However, we do not sterilise female cattle: these operations are extremely complicated and can endanger the health and life of animals. This is not common practice in the West either, as far as I know. 

In Ukraine, I still do not see any large-scale steps on the part of society to save domestic animals in particular. Our subscribers are a limited group of people, and in general, there are very few people willing to save domestic animals. 

People still come to us, asking: “Why do you ask for money to keep animals, why don’t you give the livestock away to people?” 

As for adoption, we do not give animals “to families”, although in our practice there are cases of successful adoptions under an official agreement. However, there were also such situations when new owners “disappeared”. They did not even provide a small photo report documenting what was happening to the animal.

According to the agreement, if a person improperly keeps an animal and does not provide a photo report, he or she undertakes to pay for the transfer of the animal back to the shelter. However, people did not comply with these conditions either: we came and took the animals back at our own expense.

About rehabilitation programmes

Today, even statistically, more and more psychosocial problems are being recorded in children. Therefore, the rehabilitation of children with various disorders is a very, very important and significant part of our lives. 

Before the start of the full-scale war, children came to Vuhlyk not just for excursions — they could interact with the animals, for example, feed them. Such format of communication takes place only if the animals want it.

The main value of Vuhlyk is that animals do not owe anything to anyone. We have horses that want to be petted all the time: they come up, put their backs and butts to you and always ask for attention. And there are those who are like “Hey, don’t touch me.”

Equine-assisted therapy is a delicate science. It should not be like this: put a child on a horse, ride it and goodbye. Hippotherapists must complete courses, obtain diplomas in this area of treatment and be competent and responsible in their attitude to both animals and those being rehabilitated.

About the shelter under occupation and money for rescue

Our Kherson branch is located in the temporarily occupied territory. There is a photo on Instagram with a story I could not keep silent about: the Russian occupiers severely beat a shepherd and shot a cow, after which they cut off her front legs. 

I document all the atrocities committed by Russians against our animals. However, I will be able to talk about most of the cases only after the war is over and that shelter is free. Now I am silent for the safety of the animals. Every day I think and worry about whether they will survive at all.

The territory where the shelter is located was occupied a couple of hours after the full-scale invasion. Cars with animals were shot on the roads, so unfortunately, there were no options to take the animals out. There were other farmers there who wanted to evacuate, but couldn’t. Therefore, I took out in three cars only those animals (weak cats and dogs, chickens) that lived directly in my house in Chornobaivka.

It costs 6.5 thousand euros to take one large animal from the occupied territory through third countries, which is unaffordable for our organisation. I can only pray that all the bad things will pass over the people and the animals we rescued, who are now living in the occupation.

A little more about money 

Vuhlyk would like to become independent. But so far, we have not found a way to make the shelter independent of outside funding.

There are several small volunteer organisations from Japan, U.S. and the UK that are gradually supporting us. We have not yet managed to get any large organisation interested. 

It is difficult for foreigners to feel the importance of our project without being here. Of course, we regularly film and photograph animals, write posts on social media and provide reports on how we spend the money donated. 

In fact, we mostly depend on ordinary people donating one or three dollars to us. I think that the world is changed by ordinary people: they do great things even with a little help. 

I am the only one who deals with communication and attracting new patrons. Resources are limited, and I believe that any work in our project should be paid for, including the work of future marketers or grant managers. 

On personal motivation to save animals and plans for the future

Communicating with animals makes me happy. The most joyful thing for me is to see the result. Looking at the rescued animal and noticing the changes that have taken place. 

We joke at the shelter that we don’t have people riding horses, but horses — people. I am fully committed to my work, I live for the sake of the animals I have rescued. It’s hard, and there are times when I want to give up. Then I go to the shelter, sit down next to the animals, pet them, and my motivation is immediately restored.

When we lived in the Kherson region, it was close to all the branches. At that time, I could constantly communicate with the animals.

Now I am farther away from the shelters. What’s more, the weather is not conducive to travelling, and I cannot always miss my daughter’s rehabilitation classes. But once a month I go to see the animals. I believe that any activity demands full engagement, dedication, and immersion in the work, truly feeling it.

The shelter has had bad and good times. But I think if you keep working on something, it will develop. I really want Vuhlyk to become better so that you can walk into any of our shelters and say: “Wow, how cool everything is here.”  I understand that we are still very far away from this.

Our Mykolaiv branch is exemplary. It has existed for five years, and major repairs have already been done there. And the Dnipro branch has already moved three times, so it is constantly under construction. But we have a vision, so I hope that in a few years, it will become a reality as we dream.

I believe that all animals, without exception, deserve another life, and I really want to give this “another life” to as many animals as possible.

 

The cover photo is from Oleksandra’s personal archive.

Blow pipes with a hypnotic, nooses, flashlights and treats are the things that stray animal catchers always have about them. Some of them also bring a shovel to get the animal out from under the rubble (if necessary), and cardboard to avoid lying on the cold ground during observations. All for the sake of sneaking closer and catching a street animal for sterilization.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the situation with stray animals has significantly worsened throughout Ukraine, especially in the frontline regions. This is evidenced by the results of a study conducted by  Socioinform Ukrainian Centre for Public Opinion Research. Thus, in the frontline regions, the number of cats and dogs cared for by animal volunteers has increased by an average of 60%, and in shelters — by more than 100%. 

We spoke with Khrystyna Drahomaretska and Serhii Abramov,  professional animal catchers in UAnimals sterilization missions in the east and south of the country, about why animal sterilization is the right decision in such circumstances and what is the role of catchers in this.

What is the professional path of catchers like?

Khrystyna and Serhii have in common not only cooperation with UAnimals, but also the fact that they came to the profession of animal catchers from completely different fields. Khrystyna comes from Odesa and was an architect in the past. She likes this work, but plans to return to architectural projects after the war.

Outside of work, the girl always volunteered a lot at the shelter, where dogs are fed and treated, sometimes she herself found a home for the animals or fostered them. After February 24, 2022, Khrystyna lost her job, so the girl had more time to help animals. This is how volunteering gradually turned into a new profession for Khrystyna — an animal catcher.

“A full-scale invasion began, and a lot of animals had to be evacuated. Later, we took them to shelters from the de-occupied territories as well. Then I started thinking globally about how to reduce the problem of the population of stray animals. Therefore, I got to know foreign volunteers who were ready to help with sterilization,” tells Khrystyna.

Mastering a profession that was new for her, the girl asked her colleagues about everything and also watched special videos on the Internet. Even at the beginning of her journey as a catcher, Khrystyna understood: it is very difficult to establish contact with most stray animals. Therefore, she bought the necessary equipment for catching and learnt in practice.

“I tried to say ‘come here, don’t be afraid’, but it doesn’t make sense. A wild dog looks into my eyes and sees a threat: I can catch it and lock it up somewhere. However, if it is very hungry, it will go to the smelly cat food, even in spite of its fear,” Khrystyna tells about her tricks.

The girl explains that it is cat food that most effectively attracts stray animals, even dogs. The secret here is the smell: the more fragrant the treat, the better it attracts the animal’s attention. According to this feature, even cheap sausage is superior to pieces of meat. And the consistency of the food is also important: the animal has to chew it for a long time on the spot, not grab it and run away. Therefore, catchers often use pates as bait.

Serhii is also from the south of Ukraine, from neighbouring Mykolaiv. Before the full-scale invasion, he worked as a photographer and videographer. He says that he could not even think that his life would change so dramatically. His path to becoming an animal catcher also began with volunteering.

“I came to my friend Anna Kurkurina and offered to help her with anything during the war. She had just begun an intensive process of sterilizing animals outside the city, and there was a problem: there was no one to catch them. Anna asked if I could do it, and I decided to give it a try. Experience came with time,” recalls Serhii.

The man says that the most important thing for him when catching animals is calmness. That is why he tries to clear his head of unnecessary thoughts when he goes to work.

“The animal feels your mood. Even from a distance of a few dozen metres, it understands what a person wants from it. If you are nervous, it will feel it and will not let you get close. If you know how to deal with emotions, then it is easier to catch an animal,” says Serhii.

Insights into the profession — from tools to risks

As a catcher, Serhii has already travelled all over the Mykolaiv region, helped animals from flooded Kherson and thus fulfilled orders in the east of the country. For example, in the Sumy region, he caught a huge Mastiff at the request of one of the shelters. It was this trip that the man remembers the most. He recalls that he had to drive almost across the country through snow and fog to fulfil this request. Several animal rights activists had already tried to catch the dog, but no one succeeded. Catching this dog really turned out to be an extra credit task. He even had to use a hypnotic: Serhii shot three times from a special anesthesia tube.

When catchers shoot hypnotics not from pneumatics, but from blow pipes, the animal can evade. It reacts faster than a needle with a hypnotic reaches it. Therefore, in order not to waste the drug, you need to get as close as possible to the animal. Serhii remembers: the first time he shot a dog, even with a hypnotic charge, he felt uneasy.

“I have the following point: if you can avoid shooting a dog [with a gun with a hypnotic], then I don’t do it. That’s more humane. The sound of gunshots can be traumatic for the animal, and it is better not to abuse of hypnotics,” says Serhii.

There is a detail in catching [an animal] with a hypnotic: a dog that has been hit does not fall asleep immediately. Meanwhile, the animal begins to run away, scared, and hides in places that are difficult for people to reach, such as in sewers or basements. Serhii says that sometimes you have to run a lot to catch the dog.

“Everything depends on the dog’s personality: some of them fall asleep instantly, and others run away, but there are still dogs “on adrenaline” — this hormone neutralises the anesthesia that we inject. Once I shot a dog three times with hypnotics, but it did not fall asleep. Then I couldn’t find it for a long time. Then I see: it is standing and looking at me, although by all accounts it should already have been lying down and sleeping,” tells Serhii. 

But for Khrystyna, it is mentally most difficult to work with nooses for catching animals. She says that a dog may bite its tongue or hit its muzzle in an attempt to free itself. It is difficult for the girl to look at it.

Khrystyna used to try to catch dogs with her hands, but now she has a lot of scars because of it, so she stopped doing so. She says: she was worried about every bite to avoid rabies. The work trip sometimes lasts up to a month, and the girl can’t go to the hospital there: there is not enough time or there is no hospital nearby.

“I barely convinced the doctors to give me a rabies vaccination. I told them that I worked in a war zone and caught animals biting me very often. The doctors replied: as long as there is no bite, we cannot vaccinate you. They said the drug was very expensive, and they didn’t want to waste it for no reason,” tells Khrystyna about her journey to rabies vaccination.

Fortunately, the girl eventually managed to convince the doctors with arguments that there were few people like her and every bite could be fatal for her.

Later, it saved Khrystyna’s life. Once she neglected the safety rules and did not wear rubber gloves while working with the dog. The girl touched its mucus and, without washing her hands, scratched her eye. The dog turned out to be rabid and eventually died, and Khrystyna received a new vaccination just a week after interacting with it. The catcher is sure: if it were not for the first vaccination, the infection could have already affected the brain during such a long period of time.

Even more than dog bites, the girl is afraid of cat scratches. She says that she does not understand this phenomenon, but their scratches are much more painful than dog bites. In addition, infectious irritations or purulent secretions appear as a result.

But bites and scratches are not the only dangers that threaten animal catchers, as they sometimes work just a few dozen kilometres from the places of hostilities. Therefore, in sterilization missions, you should not forget about your own safety: watch your feet carefully and react to extraneous sounds.

At the same time, Khrystyna says that sometimes it is easier to work near the demarcation line because there are no people. She explains: people often do not know about her profession and rush to protect animals, sometimes even with a fight.

“There was a situation when I shot a dog with a hypnotic. One old lady immediately ran up to me and cursed me for several generations,” says Khrystyna.

Serhii has the opposite opinion: “It is more difficult to work in frontline areas, as dogs are also stressed by explosions. They don’t understand what’s going on and panic.”

Dreams and senses in the work of catchers

Khrystyna emphasises: her dream as a professional catcher is to ensure that there are no stray animals left in Ukraine. The girl is convinced that people should adopt animals only after special training or surveys. A person must show that he/she can keep an animal and pay for its treatment. Sterilization also contributes to the reduction of stray animals. The girl had her own pet dog called Milady sterilized as well.

«I have a shepherd dog, and I sterilized her. I don’t need offspring from Milady. She is my friend, not a means of earning money on the breed,” explains Khrystyna.

Khrystyna and Serhii say that being a catcher is very exhausting. To stay in this business for a long time, you need to have stress resistance and endurance, and also understand the importance of your work.

“Few people are ready to do this job. There are people who do what thousands of others can do at work. And in order to become a catcher, you need more than just love for animals, you need a desire to understand how it works, an understanding of animal psychology,” says Khrystyna.

Serhii confirms the words of his colleague: “This is meticulous, dirty work. It takes physical and mental effort to climb through bushes, dumps and ditches to find dogs. But this is a way to help stray animals. As sometimes you see there are more and more of them, and you understand: you must solve this issue somehow.“

The man says that sometimes he has to perform more than his main duties: “Being a catcher means being a universal fighter.” For example, if a dog is injured or has an injured paw, the catcher also takes the animal to an X-ray.

It also happens that the work of catchers literally saves the lives of animals.

“Someone tied the dog’s muzzle with a piece of iron so that it could not open its mouth at all. Because of such a “muzzle mask”, the dog had not eaten anything for 2 weeks. The animal rights activists came, tried to catch it with their own hands, ran and fussed. The dog got scared and hid in an abandoned chicken coop. When I approached, the dog was sitting calmly, probably it decided to give up. We removed the piece of iron under anesthesia, and we saw that his face was cut to the bone,” says Serhii.

He is quite happy when such cases end happily: the dog not only survived, but also found a family.

The photoes of Serhii are from the photographer Gian Marco Benedetto