A week after war broke out in Ukraine, these volunteers started to rescue pets trapped in apartments
‘I don’t know of a single case where an abandoned animal died,’ says Zoopatrol founder
Zoopatrol was founded on March 3, 2022 — a week after Russia invaded Ukraine.
"Everyone at the time was doing unrealistic things, sacrificing themselves to help," Dmitry Revnyuk said in Ukrainian in the documentary Saving the Animals of Ukraine.
"We started by freeing animals from abandoned apartments. Everyone thought we had made up this story in order to rob places, because we showed up with saws and other tools."
Revnyuk and a group of volunteers in Kyiv started by smashing holes in the walls to free pets that had been left behind, but their methods evolved. Later, they simply unscrewed the peepholes from apartment doors, inserted a plastic tube and delivered food and water to the animals trapped inside. That process took seven minutes, then the volunteers would hurry to the next animal in need.
Many of the pets were in terrible condition by the time Zoopatrol arrived. In the video above, volunteers rescue a dog that had been locked in an apartment for 15 days.
"I don't know of a single case where an abandoned animal died," said Revnyuk.
Watch Saving the Animals of Ukraine on CBC Gem.
