As of March 21, 2024, due to the ongoing mandatory evacuation of all civilians in villages closer than 5km to the Russian border, a lot of animals in Sumy region are being abandoned and left to die from hunger and aviation bombs those villages are attacked with daily. If you want to help Ukrainian animal rescue volunteers who are trying to evacuate as many animals as possible from those deserted places, scroll down to learn how you can do it. The top priority right now is evacuation, so we encourage you to donate and help those organizations that evacuate animals.

Since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, which has been the most aggressive, violent and inhumane war in Europe since WW2, animals in Ukraine have faced many challenges and continue to suffer. While people affected by the war can get some help from Ukrainian government and charity organizations, millions of animals get help from few charity organizations and volunteers who risk their lives going to grey zones to feed abandoned and stray dogs, cats, as well as pigs, horses, cows, sheep, etc. and rescue the most vulnerable ones.

All animal shelters in Ukraine are non-governmental which is why there is a big number of volunteers who feed, rescue, provide medical help, sterilize, and find homes for stray dogs and cats. Before the war individual volunteers put an emphasis on sterilization in order to reduce the number of stay animals, and their efforts were successful. However, now the main priority is at least to deliver food to occupied territories and grey zones as well is to evacuate as many animals as possible. Animals there are in a catastrophic condition and need our help. Volunteers evacuate any animals they can find and catch from cats and dogs to sheep and horses.

Below we will share a list of trusted volunteers and NGO you can help by donating money for dog/cat food, treatment, gas and tires for evacuations as well as by adopting a pet into your family or helping the volunteers with promoting rescued animals so that they may find a home.

Threats that animals of war face every day:

• Hunger (for some it’s starvation)
• Wounds due to mines and shelling
• Death of their owners
• Uncontrolled reproduction due to the increase of stray animals which will lead to more severe hunger
• Being abandoned because of the evacuation of entire villages close to the Russian border (for example, in Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk regions.

In many villages on occupied territories and in grey zones there are no people left. They have either fled or were killed by Russian forces. Many animals still remain in those deserted areas! Mines and unexploded shells pose another huge threat to animals that remain there. The situation is about to get worse when it becomes colder and in winter, malnourished animals are more likely to freeze to death.

How to help animals of war in Ukraine

Luckily, there are volunteers in Ukraine that find ways to help animals on occupied territories and in grey zones. Below I’ll share the most famous local charity organizations and trusted volunteers that help animals in Ukraine. Visit their English Instagram pages to find more information about their work and how you can help them. You’ll find their PayPal on their pages and in their posts.

1. animal.rescue.kharkiv together with globalanimalrescueandresponse

Based in Kharkiv, once one of the biggest by population and one of the most prominent Ukrainian cities in the East of Ukraine, now almost daily attacked with C300 missiles, Animal Rescue Kharkiv team continues to not only rescue and treat local animals but also to evacuate abandoned and stray animals from the most dangerous places close to the frontline and Russian border.

Now, together with Global Animal Rescue and Response comprised of highly trained veterans and emergency responders ready to assist animals in need worldwide, they are rescuing animals from Sumy region, where mandatory evacuation of civilians has been announced due to daily aviation bomb attacks.

Videos on the Instagram account of Animal Rescue Kharkiv are with English subtitles. Use the See translation feature on Instagram to translate the post.

Read the full post at: https://www.instagram.com/p/C3kBBzssTBY/

Visit www.globalanimalrescueandresponse.org where you can learn more about the organization and how to donate.

2. volunteerdnipro_animals

Just like the above two animal rescue organization, this one is specifically concerned with evacuation right now as aviation bomb attacks are becoming more frequent and more people are being evacuated. The video below is with English subtitles.

3. sv.ostapkova_priut

Named after the volunteer who established this shelter many years ago in Myrnohrad, a town in Donetsk region, this shelter has become a home for hundreds of animals – once injured or abandoned. As more people are leaving the region due to the approaching frontline, this shelter is one of not many left in the region to help injured and wounded animals. If you want to help this shelter, they will gladly accept not only donations to pay for surgeries and food but also crates for transporting animals (which will also come in handy in case the shelter needs to be evacuated to a safer place in the future), medicine, food, medical equipment, dog wheelchairs, dog beds, etc.

Credit to DeepStateMAP

4. uanimals.official

UAnimals is the largest and the most famous animal rights organization in Ukraine. It’s non-governmental and nonprofit charity organization that existed long before the war and has helped animals the most since the full-scale war began. Visit their English Instagram page to find out more about their work. They also have a Ukrainian page with 214K followers.

UAnimals help animals, animal shelters, and individual volunteers in different regions of Ukraine affected by war, including Mariupol – the city of 400,000, almost completely destroyed by Russian forces, which is currently occupied by Russia. Luckily, it has recently become possible to deliver food to the newly-liberated territories of the Kharkiv region which had been occupied since the beginning of the war.

And please remember to beware of scammers who steal photos of animals (some are not even from Ukraine) and ask for money. The most sure sign an account belongs to scammers is turned off comments.

Another sure sign that an account belongs to scammers – all photos are taken in different places. If it’s a real shelter you’ll see the same facilities on many photos, you’ll see the same dogs that live there, you’ll see what happened to those animals and what is happening to them now, where they are now – their life stories.

Another possible sign it’s a fraud – the account did not exist before 24.02.2022 (when the war started).

Another sign – these “volunteers” never show their faces. So, if you have never seen this person on photos, you can’t find their name, you don’t know their location, you can’t find any information about their “shelter” or about their organization or them on the internet (because real volunteers are well known and often they are public figures), if they never ask for help to find a home for their animals, don’t accept food and other stuff, just money to “treat” animals – they are most probably scammers and you should not waste your money because this money will NEVER reach animals in need.

The best signs that the volunteers you want to help are real: they risk their lives going to dangerous places to evacuate animals, they show themselves in their videos, their videos have watermarks, you can find their names or their personal Instagram profiles. All of the organizations and shelters mentioned above are safe to donate to and have excellent reputation.

5. patron_dsns – Sapper-dog named Patron

Of course there are many more animal shelters, charity organizations, and volunteers who take care of animals in Ukraine. We’ve mentioned the biggest ones, the most famous and trustworthy volunteers. Make sure you also follow the most famous Ukrainian pets: dog-sapper Patron and cat-blogger Stepan. They’ll surely put a smile on your face after a long day at work! Patron even has a TikTok where he shares hilarious videos!

By the way, Patron is an ambassador for UAnimals (the organization mentioned above). All donations sent to his PayPal account go to UAnimals. UAnimals then send money to shelters and volunteers in need. UAnimals have also launched a free of charge animal sterilization program in several Ukrainian cities.

6. loveyoustepan – Stepan – a cat with 1.4M Instagram followers

Cat-blogger Stepan is from Kharkiv – one of the largest cities in Ukraine, which is, unfortunately, close to the border with Russia. Kharkiv is hit by missile strikes almost every day. Stepan and his human first fled to France, where the famous cat with more than 1M Instagram followers got a World Influencers and Bloggers Award and made new friends! Later he returned to Ukraine.

Many people that have pets (like me, for example) feel awful when they think that somewhere an animal like their beloved pet suffers because it hasn’t eaten for several days or weeks; stepped on a mine, lost its limb and got no medical treatment; got wounded during shelling or is shell-shocked after a missile attack.

Even a small donation can help these silent victims of war whose only hope is to have a full stomach. Please, spread awareness about the suffering of animals in Ukraine. Share this post with friends and communities. Let’s help animals of war in Ukraine together! Together we can do more.