Photos Capture Rescue Animals' Plight In Time Of War

A cat stands in the window of the Hostomel animal shelter in Hostomel, Ukraine.

The Russian intervention in Ukraine has also hurt Ukrainians. Millions of people have been displaced from their homes and tens of thousands have died. Cities and towns were destroyed beyond recognition. While the Ukrainian people and the world try to make sense of the senseless war, some of the victims do not. Wild animals, farm animals and pets enter into a conflict that cannot escape from the irresistible Russian weapons and destroy everything they know around them: forest, farm or home.

When the war started, a huge effort was made to save the animals, and they became a terrible part of life in Ukraine. Thousands of animal rights activists, volunteers and more are available to help. Just like you did at the beginning of the war on February 24, 2022, you wake up every day with one mission: to save another innocent being.

Asya Sipienska, 77, sits in her kitchen and office, surrounded by dozens of dogs. Dogs everywhere. A German shepherd was sleeping in the chair next to him; Others run out of the kitchen into a large space that was once a dairy farm and housed cats, chickens, and other animals. Some try to sit on his lap or at least rest their heads on his knee.

This year the shelter celebrated its 22nd anniversary. It all started in 1999, when Sepinska went to the Borodyanka state asylum. The conditions were so abhorrent and inhuman that they made a lasting impression on him.

"It was terrible," he said. The dogs were standing in the mud mixed with feces and snow. They didn't eat. They didn't care about them. He noted that the workers of the Borodianka shelter do not care about the animals. The dogs were eating and killing each other, as if they were being brought there to die, and you can imagine how awful that was.

Asya Cybinska, 77, sits surrounded by dogs at an animal shelter in Hostomel, Ukraine.

Maria Vronska's grandmother, Asya Sipinskaya, 24, helps run the Hostomel animal shelter in Hostomel, Ukraine.

In May of 2000, Siepinska opened the doors of her shelter with the goal of providing ethical and loving homes for all stray dogs she encounters. Since then, he has been able to keep his shelter open. His 24-year-old granddaughter, Maria Vronska, now helps run it. They are supporting the process with grants, individual donors, and support from the City of Kyiv. Before Russia's all-out invasion last February, the shelter cared for 870 dogs.

The city of Hostomel, northwest of Kyiv, witnessed the fiercest battles of the war, and its refuge was not spared from its protection. More than a hundred dogs have been rescued or killed in the race. Several shells fell on the property, destroying buildings and fences, and killing animals.

On the morning of February 24, Sibinska fled from Kyiv to Hostomeli, worrying not about what might happen to her, but worrying about the animals in her care. He went against the traffic to get back to his shelter as people ran in the opposite direction. When active fighting began on the outskirts of Kyiv, he miraculously managed to get to Irpin, and then to Hostomeli. The next day, the Russians occupied the area.

The Russian National Guard camped near the Sibinska property line, and the next day, 26 February, the Russians came under heavy fire from Ukrainian artillery. There was no bomb shelter or cellar on his property. All the shelter workers can do is hide in the huge farm building and hope for the best. The attack continued for another five weeks.

The electricity went out and the water pump in the shelter did not work. During the month-to-week Russian occupation, they had neither heating, nor electricity, nor water. They all had to sit out to avoid being killed by the Russian soldiers.

"People were shot just for walking in the street," Cybinska recalls. For five weeks the body lay by the door and no one picked it up.

To get water, melt snow, collect snow and pray for rain. "We don't stop working for a day," he says.

Marina Chomyko, 46, keeps an injured cat she rescued after the Russian attack on Kyiv at a cat shelter in Ivankov, Ukraine.

On March 30, Russian forces attacked the refuge. Cybinska and her team are suspected of passing information about Russian units in the area to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Four people lived in the compound and the Russians found a hidden cell phone. After locking the three women in the back room, they grab the only man and beat him in front of everyone.

He returned the next morning. He suffered, but he lived. On that day, the Russians retreated and left Hostomel. The next day, Sipinska burst into tears when she saw the Ukrainian soldiers entering the city.

There are now more than 600 dogs and about a hundred cats in the Sibinska shelter, many of which were rescued from abandoned apartments and the streets after the project was completed. But not all pets can be rescued, and survivors still face a difficult life as it becomes increasingly difficult to find people willing to take in the elderly and injured dogs that Siepinska specializes in.

Abandoned or fleeing injured and often traumatized animals require extra attention. 46-year-old Marina Shumeko has been caring for these pets since the first day of the war.

Shumeko is a co-founder of CatDog, an animal shelter in Ivankovo, 50 miles from Kyiv. CatDog operates out of a small building provided by the city and relies on money from the local budget, which is never enough, as well as donations, gifts, and sheer enthusiasm.

Shumyko is known as an ardent campaigner for animal rights and sterilization, who often runs afoul of the school of thought on how animals should be treated, especially in rural Ukraine. During the occupation, people were afraid to go out the doors of their homes because they risked being shot by Russian soldiers. But Shumeko went to the shelter every day and fed the animals there.

Marina Shumiko, 46, works at the CatDog animal shelter in Ivankov, Ukraine.

Shumeko waits for a minute's silence among the shooters and rides her bike to the red brick house where her 17 dogs and 27 cats are waiting for her. "I had a little token in my bag and he was waiting for me," she said.

Not only does she take care of the animals in her shelter and home, but she also takes in pets abandoned by displaced neighbours. "I went to Facebook and wrote a critical message: 'I don't agree, but I will help take care of the pet.'"

During the raid, Shumeko rescued five animals that had been abandoned or escaped from her, probably frightened by the sound of bomb explosions, and took care of every living soul she could find. But the work that was done after independence was nothing like I had seen it before. People started bringing infected animals from everywhere. He should receive additional assistance from a veterinarian who comes to Kyiv as a volunteer once a week. He also needs to find a new home to house all of the incoming animals.

Europe dreams of saving pets in Ukraine, which were taken away this year because of the war. But since there is no formal mechanism to facilitate these adoptions, it is up to volunteers and activists to find better homes for the rescued animals. The only guaranteed way to get a pet to its new owner, usually someone online in Western Europe, is to send a person with a fully vaccinated and sterilized animal by train, by car to Ukraine's western border. or bus.

Dogs guard the outdoor shelters at Sirius Animal Shelter in Fedorievka, Ukraine.

Workers distribute food to dogs at Sirius Animal Shelter in Fedorievka, Ukraine.

Patience was a dachshund in Schumacher's care during the occupation, and he was the first to go to Germany in this way. After Ivankiv was transported from Ukraine, Shumiko put the injured dog in a crate and went to Kyiv, where he made his first visit to Germany with his new family. After a seven-hour drive to the capital, Shumeco put its first user on a bus with volunteers who were going to take dozens of dogs across the border to their new homes.

Since then, 11 dogs from the Shumeko shelter have been welcomed to new homes in Europe. Transferring each one to their new owners is a huge task, but for the volunteers, it means saving one life at a time.

Bringing animals to Ukraine's western borders can be challenging. In the first weeks of the war, in the midst of mass emigration, documents for animals were not required to enter the European Union. The situation changed in the summer and it became difficult to bring more than one or two pets without supporting documents.

The problem arose when volunteers and organizations trucked the rescue animals to European shelters or directly to their new owners. They were not allowed to cross the land border with Poland and had to return to Ukraine. It was reported that stunned people released wild animals into a field near the Polish border. These organizations began to move away from the Polish-Ukrainian border, partly because it was impossible to do their work, and partly because the desire to accept pets from Ukraine was waning.

A stray dog runs on the road near a broken bridge near Irpin, Ukraine.

"Now all shelters in Europe are filled with rescue animals from Ukraine," said Viktoria Schaulska, a volunteer with the German non-profit Today Life. Before the war, Shulska worked to find new homes for pet rescues from Ukraine, and during the war she saw her enthusiasm and slow decline.

In the past eight years, Rescue has found homes for about 7,600 dogs and cats in Germany, but the war changed everything. At first, interest in pets from Ukraine increased, and then gradually decreased.

"Now pragmatic Germans crave an extra family member," says Schulska.

Cynthia Van de Kamp, 24, thinks demand is waning. She and her husband, Vadim, suddenly became advocates for animals during the war. They went to Ukraine two months before the full invasion, and two weeks into the war, finding it difficult to focus on their work. Both worked remotely in a call center in Poland and spent time looking for a cause they could benefit from.

Scanning the Telegram channels of volunteer organizations, they saw requests to help the animals. Before the war, Van de Kamp and her husband managed to rescue two and adopt a third: a bull from Turkey named Dio, who faced a bleak future as a banned breed. Dio arrived at Kyiv's Boryspil Airport hours before the airspace was closed to civil aviation as the first Russian missiles headed for a target in Ukraine. A big war has started and they want to help.

Cynthia Van de Kamp, 24, works as a volunteer near the SOS Kyiv animal shelter.

Van de Kamp found his schedule at a private shelter called SOS Kyiv. It was full of tasks, whether it was finding and distributing cat food, picking up stray dogs, or rescuing pets abandoned by butchers. In addition, they distributed food and humanitarian aid to those in need. He recalled the first few weeks of volunteering: “We did our best.

Over the summer, their small group grew to six people and gained momentum. They chose the name Van de Kamp Group, created a website and launched several social media channels to raise money. Their work expanded, sending food and medicine to newly liberated nations and assisting with military supplies while continuing to rescue animals. Costs have also gone up. In June and July, van de Kamp began to notice a decline in foreign enthusiasm.

He says YouTube and Instagram videos help posts no longer get attention. Fewer and fewer people watch videos, and fewer and fewer donors.

With war still a grim reality, major organizations and non-profit organizations have developed ways to help the animals. Most major international organizations have offices in Ukraine and support local shelters and animal rescue efforts. However, the main goal of Ukrainian shelters is to find homes for war-torn animals.

“I want to meet as many European and foreign families as possible,” said Oleksandra Mizinova, 53, a Ukrainian animal rights activist and founder of Sirius, which owns about 3,200 dogs and more than 300 cats as well as two chickens and a hedgehog. It is called Eugenia. We are at war and our lives and the lives of our animals are uncertain.

Mezinova founded Sirius in 1999 on a rented farm. He spent three years out of pocket before the first donations began. The Shelter is now available thanks to your team's passion, donations, and partnerships. Like gifts and organizational support.

Oleksandra Mizinova at the Sirius shelter in Fedorivka, Ukraine

Fedorievka, where Sirius was hiding, was occupied at the beginning of the war. Faced with the terrifying prospect of hundreds of animals being starved to death, Mizinova took it upon herself to go to the Russian soldiers and ask them for permission to obtain food from local farms in nearby villages.

This gave him more freedom under the occupation, but the threat was still too great. "Every time I go out, I leave instructions to the staff about what to do if I don't come back," Mizinova said. He agreed that the Russian occupation army could kill him in the street like any other civilian.

We almost got there once. On March 22, Mizinova, who was traveling in a truck with two colleagues, was stopped by Russian soldiers at a checkpoint and accused of spying for the Ukrainians. Shots were fired during the investigation. In order to hide from the Russian soldiers, they were first taken to a nearby warehouse, and then thrown into the basement. The three of them sat holding hands and thought that this was the last day of their lives.

And you know what's funny? We were each asked what we thought and each of us said, "The dogs are going to starve." Mizinova and her colleagues were eventually released.

In a shelter without electricity, water, or internet, Mezinova found a way to communicate through a secret cell phone. He would write messages throughout the day and save them to his phone, go somewhere on a nearby hill, find a signal and send the messages.

Mezinova's assistant in Kyiv received the letters and forwarded them to a wide network of animal rights organizations and European political parties, who launched a campaign to grant her asylum.

One of the rescue dogs at Sirius Shelter.

This step could have cost Mizinova her life, especially since she was transmitting information not only about the needs of the sanctuary, but also about Russia's activities in the region.

Thanks to his activism and calls for help, a stream of volunteers working for animal organizations from all over Europe began moving to Sirius in early April, shortly after the area was liberated from the Ukrainian army. Help would come to feed the animals and find them new homes in Ukraine or Europe. The percentage of Ukrainian pets being adopted by people outside Ukraine was only 10% before the war, but by midsummer that number had reached 70%.

Although Ukraine's love of animals has faded by the end of summer, the number of animals arriving at the gates of Sirius is not diminishing. "We won't say no," Mizinova exclaimed. Every time Ukraine liberates part of its territory, the sanctuary welcomes a new influx of animals. The last wave came from the Kherson region in November. Sirius is well known by soldiers and volunteers and is the first thing that comes to mind for many when looking for an animal shelter.

Although Sirius and most shelters in Ukraine are already over capacity, Mezinova is looking forward to tomorrow. "I hope, contrary to Putin's plan, that we will soon finish the cat house," he said, standing in the middle of an unfinished building among dozens of cats waiting for new homes in Ukraine, Europe or elsewhere.