A NEW ANIMAL RESCUE AMBULANCE is on the road saving lives in Ukraine!

In a recent appeal, we told you that an ambulance owned by our Polish partner DIOZ had been involved in an accident in the war zone and wasn’t able to be driven or repaired. We urgently needed to get the team back on the road and back to the animals - every day, DIOZ rescues desperate dogs and cats who have no one else to help them.

Once again, you came through for the animals. Thanks to your heartwarming support, we’ve been able to buy another ambulance for DIOZ so it can continue evacuating animals from some of the most dangerous parts of Ukraine. This is the third ambulance we have bought for Ukraine animal rescuers in a month.

Hundreds of animals depend on our partner DIOZ for help. Thanks to your kindness, we can be their salvation during this war. Thank you for getting DIOZ back to the animals who so desperately need help!

DIOZ does amazing work, driving great distances each week into Ukraine from its Polish base to take in pet food and bring back sick and abandoned animals. Often, Russian planes fly overhead as the team dashes into the war zone, dodging bullets, never sure if today will be the day it gets bombed. And yet, DIOZ keeps going in and bringing sick, starving, terrified animals out. This war has gone on for well over a month. The animals still on the street or cowering in bomb-hit shelters are deeply traumatized and DIOZ is the only hope they have.

We are witnesses to death, action, tragedy and pain. This is not a safe West, it's the middle of a bloody war. We hold the enemy's bullets in our hands, we see the corpses, our hearts bleed. Until we saw it, it was abstract to us… Despite the danger, we want to help animals in this most difficult time. (DIOZ, Facebook)

The results of your compassion are clear: with your support, our partners are able to continue their wonderful work for the war-stricken animals of Ukraine.

Our partners on the ground in Poland and Ukraine have not stopped their selfless work for the animals since the war began. So far, your support has enabled them to help thousands of abandoned animals who would otherwise be dead or living on the streets, their days numbered.

• ADA Foundation has moved a number of cats into the Adaptation Center you helped pay for. Here, they receive round-the-clock care, attention and love as they heal from their injuries and the trauma of war.

• Ukrainian vet Dr. Pavlina Harasym has recovered from the exhaustion which landed her in hospital last week. For the next two weeks, she’ll be working alongside DIOZ at its shelter to help treat all the sick and injured animals its team recently rescued from Ukraine.

• Our ambulances are continuing to do nonstop runs into Ukraine to deliver food and medicine and this week, managed to reach the obliterated city of Kharkiv. We’re also sending more money to our partner, the Kyiv Animal Rescue Group (KARG), to put towards a new animal rescue van.
• Rescued Ukrainian animals continue to be cared for at the house rented by DIOZ and Dr. Pavlina in Lviv as they figure out a way to get them across the border into Poland. Volunteers remain at the house to care for the animals 24/7.
• Vetmarket Pluriton has repaired its manufacturing plant and is once again able to produce pet food. We purchased 5 tons (5,000 kilograms) from Vetmarket and delivered it to the Kyiv Hippodrome, where the survivors of the Borodyanka shelter are being cared for. The food will also be distributed to other desperately needy animals in the region.

• Ecoprotection of Starokostyantyniv (EPS) has finished building the enclosures we helped fund and now has space to take in even more animals (believe it or not, animals continue to pour into shelters - the need seems never-ending). We’ve also helped EPS purchase another 120 bags of pet food before prices rise again. The team now has some 330 dogs in its care, and while adoptions are happening all the time, abandoned animals continue to arrive on EPS’s doorstep.

• Anzhela and her network of animal guardians (or should we say animal heroes?) continue to feed animals on the streets of Donbas as rockets fly overhead. Many of these guardians are elderly, sick or disabled, yet they are out on the streets every day, whenever there is a lull in the fighting, to feed the animals who have somehow managed to survive the heavy shelling and destruction of the past several weeks. One of the guardians recently broke down the fence of a neighboring house to rescue a dog who had been abandoned inside. The animal was found starving and bleeding profusely, but we are happy to report that the dog is now safe and in the care of Animal Guardians.

Every day of this war, the situation gets worse for the animals. Times are desperate, and in desperate times, animals are all but forgotten by most people. But not by us, and not by you.

We sadly have to report that the situation for animals in Ukraine is still getting worse all the time. As the Russians retreat and we are able to reach areas that were too dangerous to access during the heavy onslaughts in February and March, we uncover more and more heartbreak, more deprivation, more pain and more death.

The animals have been suffering for more than 6 weeks. Those who are miraculously still alive are edging ever closer to a lonely and painful death.

We are doing our best to reach as many as we can, but it is difficult and dangerous, and we can only do it with your continued support. The ambulances, fuel, shelter, medication and the tons and tons of food have all been made possible thanks to your generosity and pure love for animals. Without this support from you, none of our work would be possible, and countless animals would be left out in the cold to die, utterly alone.

An animal tragedy of unimaginable proportions is unfolding in Ukraine - animals really, truly, desperately, need help on an epic scale - we will fight for each and every one of them, but we can only do as much as our supporters allow us to do. Your donation is so important. Please contribute as much as you can today.

THANK YOU for being a friend to the animals of Ukraine, and THANK YOU for staying by their side. They’ve never needed it more.

For the animals,

Brian and Gloria Davies (and Max and Flora!)
Founders
Network for Animals

P.S. As long as the war continues, we will be there for the animals. And once it’s over, we’ll be on the ground, helping every single one of them we can. This is only possible with your continued kindness. Please donate now, whatever amount you are able to, and know that it will be used to bring comfort, protection and love to an animal who desperately needs it.

Image credits: Banner: Rodrigo Abd/Associated Press/Atalayar; image 1, 3 & 5: DIOZ;image 4: ADA Foundation ; image 6: VetMarket Pluriton; image 7: Ecoprotection of Starokostyantyniv; image 8: Animal Guardians; image 9: @Firsov_Donetsk/Dominic Dyer/Twitter; image 10: Zohra Bensemra/ Reuters/SkyNews