It was at that point I truly understood the word hope.
In the villages surrounding Kharkiv in the summer of 2022, we delivered what we could to those that needed it the most.
The Russians were only a few Kilometers away and the ever ready threat of artillery was never far away. Most of these people and the towns they live and love were occupied only a few weeks prior - so war to them was an ever moving ebb and flow.
Today though, however, they were at (somekind of) peace.
So we moved slowly around the towns handing out food. We had to be careful with what we had as it was not an never ending supply. To that end we saw the animals they had and delivered the food accordingly, but promising that we would be back.
The joy that your donations gave was always there to be seen, but one time it hit hard what we were really delivering.
We came across a lady with many cats but she looked, somewhat, bemused. When Pavel (our amazing guide) told her we were here to help her feed her cats and that I had come all the way from the UK to assist …. she fell to her knees crying.
Pavel asked her what the problem was and she replied “He has come all the way here to help us! … We are not forgotten”.
It was at that point that I realised that it was not just aid we were delivering, but hope too.
We all had to chase back the tears.
As Andy Dufresne said in the Shawshank Redemption, “Hope is a good thing, possibly the best of things and no good thing ever dies”.
We will keep delivering hope and aid and with your help we can carry on.
Why these photo’s exist.
I spent 11 months in Ukraine with K9 Rescue Ukraine myself, my friend Tom Bates and with help from our colleague Rebecca Renmant-Oliver in the UK, rescued and fed thousands of animals across the Ukrainian countryside.
With your help we will carry on.
