Bombed Pets Reach Poland.

An estimated 3.5 million refugees have fled the onslaught in Ukraine; another 6.5 million men, women, and children have been displaced within the country, according to the UN this week. With (or without) them, countless dogs and cats have been made homeless as well.

This week Vice reported on Polish volunteers risking life and limb to save abandoned pets. There’s Janusz Żwański, a Polish postal worker who brings helmets and antibiotics to Ukraine when he’s free, returning to Poland with unhoused Ukrainian cats. “I went to the border with friends to help and saw they already had everything because so many Poles are helping. So, I spontaneously decided to cross into Ukraine instead,” Żwański said.

The animals arriving in Poland are both strays and pets, many of the latter group belonging to Ukrainian soldiers who stayed to fight. When the dogs and cats reach Poland, they are taken to now-crowded shelters, such as Judyta Fundacja Dla Szczeniąt, or Judyta Foundation for Puppies. Judyta networks with other groups – pet rescues and shelters – to retrieve, treat, and hopefully house Ukrainian pets.

“One day, volunteers will travel out for animals and the next day the building they visited gets bombed. So we’re really balancing life and death,” said Judyta’s vice president, Małgorzata Brzezińska. “That dogs were going to come from Ukraine, we already knew the day after the war started… but the situation exceeded our expectations.”

Judyta has taken in over 100 dogs from Ukraine, including dozens with “paralysis, lost limbs, or severe illnesses,” with many of these ailments contracted even before the war.

“All the dogs in the worst state come to this site,” Brzezińska said.

Visit Judyta Foundation at fundacjajudyta.com/english/ and scroll down to donate.

Photo credit: Judyta Foundation