(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Kitchen Table Kibitzing: Bless the Ukrainian Animals [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-01-19 I had just returned home from walking the dog and sat down at my computer with a cup of coffee when I recalled it was Wednesday morning and time for the weekly Zoom Conversation Club with internally displaced Ukrainians. My first instinct was to bow out but then I thought why not give it a try? I looked up the Zoom invitation and the next thing I knew I was in the meeting with about 15 individuals about equally distributed between Americans and Ukrainians. There was a lot of organizing underway as the meeting began, with some people unable to access it because the link had been changed, but by 9:30 we were ready to begin chatting about the topic of the week which was animals. The Ukrainian English language learners shared memories of growing chickens from eggs, of surfing with dolphins, of beloved dogs and cats, of an Australian animal called a wombat. The Ukrainian man who shared about surfing with dolphins directed us to a story about Tens Of Thousands Of Dead Dolphins Among Environmental Casualties Of Ukraine War — A Ukrainian marine biologist estimates that at least 50,000 Black Sea dolphins have been killed as a result of Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Ivan Rusev says he's shocked by the number of dolphin carcasses that have washed up on the shores of his nature reserve in Ukraine's Odesa region. Mines, underwater explosions, and power sonar from Russian submarines have caused an environmental catastrophe for marine wildlife. But Rusev says he has a plan to help the Black Sea dolphin population recover. - Which got us talking about what’s happening with all animals during the Ukrainian conflict. Here’s some information I found after the meeting ended. "The war is affecting animals just as it is affecting humans," [Petva] Petrova tells NPR. "[Animals] are tired, they are stressed, and the prolonged distress is causing sickness and disease," she says. "Stray animals in the streets are unprotected from airstrikes and many shelters have been destroyed." Petrova, who works with PETA, was at the German/Ukrainian border soon after the war began last February to assist Ukrainians who were fleeing with their pets. She subsequently quit her job and moved to Kviv to help evacuate animals from the war zone. From an NPR transcript from last September (All Things Considered) PETYA PETROVA: We are on the way home from the city of Mykolaiv in the south of Ukraine. We just picked up seven cats. ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Petya Petrova, a 34-year-old Bulgarian with wavy brown hair and nerves of steel, leaves a message from one of her missions. She quit her job with animal rights group PETA in Germany to move to Ukraine and devote herself full-time to rescuing animals caught in the conflict. Petrova drives in and out of places under attack, cities in the Donbass, Kharkiv, trying to treat or rescue animals in peril. And not just domestic pets - cows, horses and other farm animals have been killed or injured in targeted attacks against farmers. Wildlife is suffering, too. PETROVA: Hey, Eleanor. Good morning. I don't have much time. So I'm going to record you this message. We are going to this location I just send you. There is the fox cub. We're going to bring the baby to Kyiv to a wildlife sanctuary there. -snip- (SOUNDBITE OF DOGS BARKING) BEARDSLEY: An animal shelter in the central eastern city of Dnipro is doing its part for people forced to flee their homes. These days, most of the 350 dogs they keep are not strays but have families who were forced to abandon them. Irina Ponomarenko is the shelter director. IRINA PONOMARENKO: (Speaking non-English language). BEARDSLEY: She names the towns the dogs are from, all places under intense Russian shelling. She says people often have only minutes to evacuate. PONOMARENKO: It is very difficult to find transport, a car to carry a dog, and many people stay till the end because they can't leave their pets. BEARDSLEY: Ponomarenko says people arrive terribly shaken in cars that have sometimes been shot at. Their pets are frightened and sometimes sick or injured because there are no more animal clinics in the east. She says her shelter is committed to keeping these animals safe until their owners can return for them. In Kharkiv, as of last April, almost 100 animals have died in the Feldman Ecopark Svitlana Vyshnevetska, 62, the ecopark's deputy director, says when it came under fire, she got down on her knees and told the animals she was sorry. "After every trip to the park, I said I would not go again. But I went anyway. The animals were waiting for us," she says. "Ten years of work I put into that park. They were all groomed and fed. They were our family. And when you see the broken cages, the destruction — the monkeys were hiding in the toilet — it's devastating." Natalia Popova has found a new purpose in life: Rescuing wild animals and pets from the devastation wrought by the war in Ukraine. “They are my life,” says the 50-year-old, stroking a light-furred lioness like a kitten. From inside an enclosure, the animal rejoices at the attention, lying on her back and stretching her paws up toward her caretaker. Popova, in cooperation with the animal protection group UA Animals, has already saved more than 300 animals from the war; 200 of them went abroad and 100 found new homes in western Ukraine, which is considered safer. Many of them were wild animals who were kept as pets at private homes before their owners fled Russian shelling and missiles. Popova’s shelter in the Kyiv region village of Chubynske now houses 133 animals. It’s a broad menagerie, including 13 lions, a leopard, a tiger, three deer, wolves, foxes, raccoons and roe deer, as well as domesticated animals like horses, donkeys, goats, rabbits, dogs, cats and birds. 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