Left behind: a volunteer army rescues the animals of Ukraine | The Excerpt
On a special episode (first released on May 15, 2024) of The Excerpt podcast: It has now been over two years since Russia invaded Ukraine. As the people of Ukraine fled their homes, many were forced to leave their belongings behind and, for some, that included beloved pets. At animal shelters, volunteers who’d dedicated their lives to saving animals had to choose between abandoning those animals in what became active war zones or staying behind to face bombs and Russian soldiers. Luckily for the animals, as one rescuer put it, fear was often overcome by compassion. Popular Ukranian YouTuber and wartime storyteller Anton Ptushkin's new documentary "Saving the Animals of Ukraine," premieres Wednesday, May 15th, on PBS Nature. He joins The Excerpt to discuss humanity’s responsibility to animals during wartime.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Dana Taylor:
Hello and welcome to The Excerpt, I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Wednesday, May 15th, 2024, and this is a special episode of The Excerpt. It's now been over two years since Russia invaded Ukraine. As the people of Ukraine fled their homes, many were forced to leave their belongings behind, and for some, that included beloved pets. At animal shelters, volunteers who dedicated their lives to saving animals, had to choose between abandoning those animals in what became active war zones or staying behind to face bombs and Russian soldiers. Luckily for animals, as one rescuer put it, "Fear was often overcome by compassion". What is humanity's responsibility to animals during wartime? Our guest is popular Ukrainian YouTuber and wartime storyteller, Anton Ptushkin, whose new documentary, Nature: Saving the Animals of Ukraine, premieres tonight, Wednesday, May 15th on PBS.
Trailer clip:
If it is alive, we need to help it because you have to understand that the whole staircase from that part of the building was demolished. So there was no chance for the animal to get down. And that's when it all started.
Dana Taylor:
Thanks for being on The Excerpt, Anton.
Anton Ptushkin:
Thank you for having me, Dana. Thank you.
Dana Taylor:
Through your lens, we see the effects of war on animals and the people who care for them. How are attitudes about non-human lives and the effects of war evolving since the start of the war in Ukraine?
Anton Ptushkin:
For me especially, and for many Ukrainians and foreigners, it was an eye-opener because I don't think that such an exodus, how it was called by the western media, exodus of animals was going to seen for, I don't know, for decades. And for the first weeks of this invasion, we saw so many photos and videos with people trying to save themselves with their pets, beloved animals. And that was kind of some kind of light of hope. I mean it's really, really dark times. So I think, yeah, it just gave us some hope. And yeah, obviously it showed some kind of moral traits, some good moral traits of Ukrainians. So as one of the talents in our documentary, Asya Serpinska, she's a founder of the oldest animal shelter in Kiev region. She said that your behavior towards animals is actually your behavior towards people. So it shows just the moral aspect of your humanity. So I think that when we speaking about animals, we kind of thinking about people as well.
Dana Taylor:
In your documentary, you show animal rescues taking place on the front lines without any military support, this clearly dangerous work. What compels people to do it?
Anton Ptushkin:
I think, again, human traits, this moral aspect of us as humans, one of the talents of our documentary, she has been saving animals in particular like lions and tigers from war zones, from war-active zones. And it's really big cats as you can guess. And in order to transport like a lion, you have to tranquilize it, obviously, because you cannot transport like that. The whole lion, you cannot put it in the cage. So these brave woman, her name is Natalia Popova, she's been going to the front lines, I don't know, for two years right now because a lot of vets, they refuse to go there because it's really dangerous and she's doing all these kind of tranquilized things with her own hands. And I spoke to her a couple of times and we recorded her and she said, "Listen, this is my way of contribution to this war. I have this chance to save not a human life but animal life, but for me it's just the same". And it really struck me.
Dana Taylor:
When the film, I did notice that this work seemed to be therapeutic for animal rescuers. Do you think that rescuing animals helps with the feeling of powerlessness felt by many during this war?
Anton Ptushkin:
Yeah. I really think so. I think that helping animals, we as humans, again we make a big contribution to our, I would say to our mental health during the war. Because during the wartime you have to feel that you're making something good. You're making something that the society needs. And when you're saving animals, as like a lot of ZOA activists they said that this is the best therapy for me. When I save the cat, this day will become the best day because I did something good. But again, I want to mention one of our talents, she says that "When we think that we rescue animals, sometimes animals rescue us because they just give us some meaning". I think it's really good. It's a really good quote.
Dana Taylor:
Rescuers of domestic animals, cats and dogs, trapped inside locked apartments, for example, had to get creative when attempting to get food and water to animals who'd gone days without. Tell us how they did it.
Anton Ptushkin:
A really interesting organization called ZOA Patrol that what they used to do, they unscrewed the peephole and put inside this peephole like a tube with a liquid, with the water because the water was the biggest problem, especially for dogs. The dog could survive, I believe, like a week or 10 days without water. But that's the limit. For cats it was much easier. And we know some cases when cats survived without food and water for almost two months and that's a pure magic, I don't know how come. But yeah, it turned out that cats are much more durable in terms of the survival thing than dogs.
Dana Taylor:
And as you mentioned, some of the animals in need of rescue weren't domesticated animals at all. You also highlighted the efforts to rescue lions, tigers, and bears left locked inside of small enclosures. How long were some of these animals trapped and what effect did the sounds of war, like bombs exploding short distance away, have on their psychological?
Anton Ptushkin:
It was again an eye-opener for me because I didn't know that animals and the animals they could have, for example, PTSD. I didn't know that we as humans and animals, we share the same suffering. But the biggest problems for animals is the fact that they cannot communicate. So they cannot explain that they're suffering, that they have these fears or something like that. So yeah, there's a story about the lion called Bratzel on our documentary that has, he was kept in a small cage close to the Donetsk region. This is almost a front line. And he was kept in this cage under the bombs. So this kind of little town was bombarded many times and obviously it has some great impact on his psyche. And he was evacuated to Kiev and I saw this lion in Kiev and he has severe symptoms of PTSD, like severe symptoms. But eventually he was brought to Spain to some, let's say, rehabilitation center for lions. And you won't believe how nice and happy he is right now. It's a completely different lion because I saw him in Kiev, he was really traumatized. But in Spain, he gets recovered and it's again, it's amazing story about how animals, they actually found a new life because of that war.
Dana Taylor:
As you mentioned, some of the rescues in your film happened near the front line with bombs exploding all around. How were the rescuers you spoke with able to manage the very real danger to themselves while addressing the needs of animals trapped in a war zone?
Anton Ptushkin:
I took part in a couple of evacuation close to the front lines in Donetsk region, and I spoke to one volunteer from Bulgaria, her name is Petya. And I asked her again why she's doing that. And she said, "Because I know that a lot of people they're volunteering for people and I thought that it would be great to have also volunteers for animals. So that's why I moved from Germany to Ukraine and helping animals". And she comes to Donbass, to frontline on a weekly basis and just evacuating cats and dogs. And she has this interesting habit. Anytime she returning safe from war zones, she put tattoo on her body, she makes tattoo, because she's alive. So I think those people should be mentioned and their job should be highlighted. So again, that's another reason why we made this movie.
Dana Taylor:
You shared the story of a former pet who became a bomb sniffing dog, he was small enough not to trigger a landmine. That was one of my favorite stories in your documentary, I just thought of this one dog saving not only people, but potentially other animals.
Anton Ptushkin:
Yeah. You mentioned this story. It's also because this dog have become a friend for me, this dog is called Patron, and it's a cute Jack Russell terrier, really tiny. And it weighs something around four kilograms. And in order to trigger the mine, you have to weigh like five plus kilograms. Yeah. So this is his super ability. But the story behind Patron truly amazed me because that was just a regular dog. It was not bomb sniffing dog before 24th of February, 2022. It was just a dog in a family of engineer or [inaudible 00:10:55]. But because the war started, and actually they thought that they would go to, I don't know, to some exhibitions, like a dog exhibitions and he'll take part in these exhibitions and that's it. But because war come to our country, this dog became like a bomb sniffing dog because Jack Russell's, they have really, really good smell and he managed just to find the landmines. And for this period, he has found, I believe more than 500 landmines or so. So it's funny and sad story simultaneously for me. And yeah, it's really heartwarming and this dog is still going to the front lines and still looking for mines with his owner.
Dana Taylor:
As you mentioned earlier, one of the people featured in your film said that sometimes when we think we're saving animals, it's actually the animals who are saving us. What would you like people to take away from this film?
Anton Ptushkin:
I met one girl, her name is Marina, she's 10 years old or something like that. And she lost her leg because of rocket attack from Russian sites. And she had, again, severe symptoms of PTSD for obvious reasons. And eventually she met with Patron, this dog that I mentioned already, and Patron, he became like a celebrity dog in Ukraine. And Marina met this dog, Patron, and later I spoke with her psychotherapist and she told me that meeting with Patron a couple of times drastically improved the sleep of Marina, her behavior, the colors in her pictures became more vibrant. It's only one dog and it helps so drastically. So I think that we can learn a lot. I mean, because of this war in terms of ZOA therapy, animal therapy, I think it really works. So I think that the biggest outcome for me, one of the biggest outcome for me in this documentary is the understanding how close we become with our pets, with our animals, and how drastically they help us to cope with the stress and other really bad side effects of war.
Dana Taylor:
Anton, thank you so much for joining me.
Anton Ptushkin:
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
Dana Taylor:
Thanks to our senior producers, Shannon Rae Green and Bradley Glanzrock for their production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to podcast@usatoday.com. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow morning with another episode of The Excerpt.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Left behind: volunteers rescue the animals of Ukraine | The Excerpt
