UCCA and Rachael Ray Animal Fund

After nearly 3 years of genocidal sustained combat operations against Ukraine, russia’s military doctrine and tactics are clear – the total annihilation of Ukraine.  As a result of this unprovoked brutal invasion, it is not only Ukraine’s civilians who continue to suffer, but also their pets. To combat this situation, UCCA's Kyiv Bureau, along with an animal rescue volunteer, Zoya Shkurko, founded  the “Four-Legged Santa” project.  The goal of the project is to reduce the number of animals abandoned during the war in Ukraine and to provide comprehensive assistance to Ukrainians who have pets, but as a result of the war are unable to fully care for them.  Celebrity cook Rachael Ray has joined the UCCA in this effort.

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Within the framework of this project, there is also a program called “Feedy Tails,” which provides assistance to several shelters that house abandoned dogs and cats.  The program delivers food and medicine for the animals, as well as necessary assistance to the animal shelter volunteers, such as clothing, shoes and gloves. 

The third project "Four-legged defender" provides for the transfer of nutritious food to animals, special cages, collars, and veterinary first-aid kits for service dogs, which work together with our defenders who are demining liberated territories to save the lives of both the military and the civilian populations. We closely and successfully cooperate with the canine services of the Support Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Police, the National Guard and the Main Directorate of Intelligence, which have more than 400 service dogs. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092245396901  

As part of this project, for the first time in Ukraine, we translated the tactical K9 manual according to NATO standards and published the first edition in 300 copies and the second edition in 1000 copies. These copies were distributed to our defenders in the relevant units, and additionally we provided an electronic mobile version of this manual. The program also invented a special tourniquet for rescuing injured dogs and gave it to dog handlers for their use. As part of the project, we are constantly involved in the evacuation of abandoned animals from the war zone in the Donetsk region. In 2022-2023, we took animals to animal shelters from the city of Bakhmut (the Lada shelter), from the city of Pokrovska (the shelter of Daria Korkh), from the city of Maryanka and the city of Georgiivka. In 2023, we coordinated and evacuated abandoned animals during an environmental disaster when the Russians blew up the Kakhovka Hydrogen Power Plant.

The total number of animals saved as part of the project exceeds more than 600 animals from the Donetsk region, and 200 animals from the Kherson region - cats and dogs, and an additional 80 animals, among which were foxes, nutria, birds, snakes, hamsters, minks and others. We constantly hand over food for animals to our defenders, film directors, volunteers, we ourselves drive to and feed abandoned animals in the gray zone in the east of Ukraine and the "zero" line in the Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson regions. We pay great attention and deal with the adoption of evacuated animals, and then we do not leave them and continue to help them by providing food and veterinary drugs. As part of the Four-Legged Santa project, we have established fruitful cooperation with animal volunteers, guardians of animal shelters and veterinarians, military dog trainers, who also count on our help with food for animals.