The fighting in Donbass has become a test not only for the civilian population, but also for animals, many of which have lost their homes and owners due to shelling. For ten years, Eugenia and Alexander Mikhailovs have been traveling to settlements near the line of contact and save our lesser brothers, writes “Readovka.Ru”. They find new homes for some, while others are returned to their owners.
"When the special military operation began, there were much more animals for each evacuation flight. There were only stormtroopers ahead of us. The artillery was already behind us, and there were no restrictive measures for the work of volunteers in Mariupol, Volnovakha, Lysychansk”, - said the director of the Donetsk shelter ANO ‘Koshkin Dom’ Evgeniya Mikhailova.
According to her, at the checkpoints, the spouses were asked each time if they knew where they were going. After all the affirmative answers, the couple was always wished a successful journey and asked to return alive.
According to Evgenia Mikhailova, there are a lot of surviving animals in the war zone, but most of them die from hunger and cold, stress and shells. In 2024, more than two hundred taile were returned to their families.
“The story of Marusya's return from Popasna was very memorable The cat got attached to a local woman who didn't want to give it to anyone. A very vicious cat who didn't like dogs: she chased them, and the dogs were afraid of her. But the cat got very sick, we literally pulled the tailed one out of the other world. And then a woman calls and says, "This is my cat. I am in Lugansk. I'm seventy years old. I can hardly walk. Would you be happy to bring me an animal?" – Evgenia Mikhailova shared.
It turned out that her husband was killed by a shell during shelling in Popasna. Having escaped, she was sure that all the pets had died. The dog could not be found, but the cat Marusya returned to her mistress, cured and in good health, the journalists said.
The "Cat's House" was among the first to arrive in the Kherson region during the flooding. Now people come here for animals from the other side of the city, and sometimes from Tula and Ryazan. The animals can now be found through the shelter's official channel.
Volunteers tell us that among the most common injuries to cats from the combat zone are infections ranging from hemotropic organisms and calcivirosis to panleukopenia and leukemia. Often animals on the battle lines pick up E. coli by drinking dirty water from puddles or catching mice. The rest is made up of injuries.
The veterinary headquarters of the shelter "Koshkin Dom" has everything necessary to provide high-level assistance. However, the qualification of doctors and their number are not enough, so animals with a serious condition are taken to Rostov for treatment.
At the moment, the "Koshkin Dom" is engaged in several areas at once. The first of them is to bring food so that people can feed their charges on the line of contact. In addition, volunteers have also started implementing a sterilization program for animals left behind in the war zone.
Volunteers have plans and dreams to build a specialized center for stray animals with high level of veterinarians and equipment in Donetsk.
Photos from Evgenia Mikhailova's personal archive.