Ukraine is not a stable country.

Even before war.

All the time it was.

You start something and you should close it.

We start all the different businesses in Ukraine.

Then I have some flower shops.

We make, like hookah business, then coffee shops, then carpenters, and all the time we should do a close.

It's because something happens in Ukraine.

So that was the first experience to leave everything and go.

What was it like a week before the war?

What did your day look like?

The week before, the war was totally different from what we have now.

And what you were expecting.

I caught a glimpse.

Did their electricity go out?

What a hard life.

I mean, my God, can you imagine?

Because wintertime in Ukraine, right now, it's difficult.

They didn't have energy all the time Turned off lights in the house.

So it's it's really difficult.

Right.

Sometimes that meeting our electricity is gone.

I'm here for this, working all over to turn on our, special devices to have the lights.

I. Let's start again.

Because all these blackouts and the absence of heating when it's cold outside, inside when you don't have a light, it influences our life.

And the war started on Thursday.

And I remember on Saturday we were driving in Kiev and we were admiring, look how beautiful our city is I cannot believe anyone could try to ruin it.

We were seeking like, if something happens, we should be smart enough to leave.

There was a lot of rumors.

I don't think that war will start.

I'm optimist.

Always.

I never believe in bad things.

And we were back here very soon.

Because, you know, home is home.

Thursday morning we wake up from the sounds of some missiles & rockets.

War started.

They have some bomb been near us five miles from us.

It was two bombs.

And the first air raid siren that we hear in our life.

But it's one thing when you hear it in the movies.

But when you wake up from is it sounds like.

What is it really true?

It was unexpected.

And then everything changed.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's awful.

A lot of lives destroyed.

A lot of buildings destroyed.

Missiles.

Rockets hit.

Exactly.

Our, humanitarian van we were really depressed.

That's true.

There were a lot of explosions near that place.

I'm trying to hide.

You know, it's like you're trembling.

There are a lot of things going on and a lot of people struggling.

Some days it's, like, very hard to start to everything again doing this work.

And it's very dangerous.

And the first time, like, you know, we had to really depression.

All my family born in Russia in 1991, we moved to Ukraine.

So it's not now any problems before?

Now families start to hate each other because, of course, others.

And they don't think that it's a problem of politics.

They think it's personal.

It's very personal war for them.

So I think it's not a personal is political.

Our plans ruined because of the war.

We had so much plans.

It's impossible to make very long plans.

I mean, their lives changed, and it's true because it was a normal life in which you can, have some plans.

You can have some dreams.

And right now it's not like that We are not the only animals that suffer in war.

Every other animal in an animal's habitat is blown up.

So you had dead animals and traumatized animals that were panicking and running down the streets, and there's no habitat left for them.

This cruelty goes on and on and on.

All the cats and dogs that are in the streets that don't have homes.

You have a shelter and you don't know what to do for now, to just open the shelter so that dogs could escape and save their lives or to keep them.

But what if you keep them and the bomb hit?

Now more dogs need help then are adopted.

In the first days of the war It was.

It was like hundreds of beds daily.

Beloved pets at home were abandoned by people.

We had calls from people who had to escape to some other countries.

They were asking us to get into their house to rescue their pets.

There were thousands of animals which need rescue, and a lot of people, you know, they leave them, but they leave them in some places where they cannot be even found.

Okay, I think you'll take care.

Bye bye.

You know, like this, in some cities, we.

Which were just liberated from Russian soldiers.

There was no water even for people.

There is nothing there.

And people have nothing to give to their cold pets.

They need food.

They need medicines.

We would just go in somewhere and inside of the forest we see a dog.

It was something like this.

You know, some people, they even tie to the trees and leave them.

There you see, like chain and symbols.

Like in the ground.

So it's really awful.

I'm sure they did it because they just stopped tied here and went , because if they didn't tie, then the dog will come after you.

She will run after you,of course In the beginning of the war, there was a huge scandal.

Then there was, city shelter near Kiev.

There was 400 dogs.

They stayed in that shelter two months with no food, no water for two months.

half of them were dead.

The rest, they was just bones with a skin on it.

In Ukraine, we also have this kind of people which are called duck hunters, who believe that they must kill all the homeless pets.

But unfortunately, a lot of dogs were killed this way.

They can act sololy, they can act in groups.

I don't know why they did it, but just, I don't know, for fun.

There is a law to protect animals from them, but on practice, it doesn't work.

It's very sad.

Just like a kind act changes everything.

An act of cruelty or violence changes everything as well.

USA starts this program United for Ukraine.

We don't want to stay there.

First I make documents for Olena & kids because I think I cant move for emergency.

I make it for me too.

Alex had problem with health and that's why we have a document for it and we can move for whole family.

We have 90 days to move for this program from Ukraine.

Yeah, it was hard.

Not everybody has this chance.

And in June we come here.

But we can take her with us because for sure we need specific documents.

That's why we make a decision to leave her with parents.

And it was difficult for me.

It was really difficult for children.

too.

Bad for our kids especially.

This was very hard.

I try to explain to them why we can't bring her with us.

It was difficult.

Yeah, I cry and children cried.

It was more difficult for us, for our children, because they really missed her.

and for us because for us it was like not whole family all together.

So it's like this.

I know that the boys missed her so much.

The little one kept asking if they were going to get her back.

Our youngest all the time.

Asking 5 or 6 times in a day.

Every day, 4 or 5 times a day.

Where was skye.

So, he really missed her .

It's not 100%.

You will see here again.

We hope it will be like that, but we not sure about it.

It's a little bit easier because we know that she stay with people who love her too.

This came to make this choice little bit easier, but still, it was difficult.

Our companion animals and our fellow animals are an intrinsic part of our lives, whether we know it or not.

And the way that we treat them or hold them in esteem is one of the most important parts of being human.

These animals are just like us.

They have friends and family likes and dislikes.

They have a sense of humor.

If you've ever had a dog, you know dogs have a great sense of humor.

The way we treat them is a barometer of what kind of animals we are.

We came here in June and when we moved, it was the main question do they have option for us to bring our dog here?

Skye was staying with their parents in Ukraine.

20 or 30 countries are not allowed to bring dog to U.S.

and Ukraine was one of them.

They needed to move her to Poland so that she was out of the war zone so that she could be shipped to the United States.

Dog goes to Europe and make documents like European Dog and After to America.

There are companies who handle this type of animal transportation, and they did use one of those.

It's not like easy.

It can be done, but very hard.

It's about $2,000 to bring a dog from Ukraine to the USA.

She lived with Alexs parents.

Okay, it's like 170km from Kiev.

So we need to bring her from Loki to Kiev first and from Kiev to Poland.

In Poland, she stay in boarding Gallia for three days.

It was more stressful for me because I know that she was somewhere with someone and I know her character how shed react.

She was really aggressive.

She, bite two men.

And after that that they move her.

So she went to two places in Poland.

And from there she fly into Chicago and then flew to the United States.

This journey was really expensive.

So the whole trip take $1,700.

I saw a post on next store from Elena that they needed help getting there.

A little dog from Chicago, to Boulder .

My heart went out to them and I thought what if it were my animal?

They had paid for everything up to that point, but they it was very expensive.

We need to pick her up from Chicago, from Chicago to Boulder, it was $500 and they basically ran out of money.

And when I saw that, I thought, you know, how can I not do this?

Well, our plan was that Alex would get to Chicago.

And then there was a plane leaving for Boulder in two hours.

And it was stressful because when Alex came to Chicago, we have only two hours between flights and we were sure that , that time will be enough.

I come to Chicago.

The plane is coming.

I waited for a long time.

I waited 2 hours She don't come here and we don't know how they people move her here.

or just take money and go away.

I called him, but he didn't answer.

You don't know exactly.

So, that's why we were nervous.

He waited 3.5 hours for her.

But it took him 3.5 hours, so he missed his flight to Boulder.

It happens that Alex lose his flight.

Now, when Sky got to Chicago, all of a sudden the transportation company wanted more money.

They told us that we will need to pay, some taxes for her .

We will need to pay $300.

But the transportation said they needed more forms and more things to be able to get her to Boulder.

So he had to spend another night in Chicago and then flew out the next day.

All the way from Chicago for here she was on my hands.

She don't want to go anywhere.

She afraid to leave.

Getting home at 1:00 in the morning.

And they came at 1AM at night.

And she just saw me and she was like, it's you!

Its really you!

Yeah.

And after that, I give her a chance to go to the children.

To go into their bed and smell both of them.

Like it's my family.

It's true.

It was funny.

Oh, she was very happy.

Yeah, and I was happy.

For Lev it was really important for his emotional health to be all together and when Sky e came even his psychologist, told us that he became more concentrated.

More emotional stabilization for both of them was very happy, Very Happy.

For her.

It's like di stressful because it's a lot of squirrel here.

And she's like, oh, I can, I can, I can catch them, I can do that.

She has a little bit crazy character.

Sometimes she just want to be with us more than before.

She really emotional.

A little bit more nervous.

And after her journey, she became more and more emotional than she was before.

But still, she is good.

It doesn't matter where it will be.

Just she need us here right now.

The family is whole.

So it became whole.

Like real family .

Well, a lot of people would say, well, why go through this for a dog.

They spent so much time and money on one little tiny dog in Ukraine, getting it here to them because they love the dog.

They missed her.

She was part of their family.

Their ability to move forward after what must have been a truly traumatic situation.

War is terrible, is almost one of the worst things that can happen to people.

And yet here they are just moving forward.

It's difficult to be here when my family is there, and I am all the time feeling guilt because I have here normal life with some plans, some good material stuff, and they stay in Ukraine and they can't have same plans.

Understand that you must leave in in this moment and do what you want right now, because next moment cannot happen.

It renews my faith and just how wonderful humans can be.

Sometimes if you do in doing animal work, you see some of the worst things that happen.

If you just sit and realize what you are seeing in front of you, you will not be able to live after that.

When you know all these cruel things that happen, I understand that everything happens for a reason.

For every dog there is an owner who will take care of her.

There are organizations like YAPOMOGA.

We will stand for the In any situation, we have to help animals.

Yapomoga box is vending machine Every plastic bottle that You put in the in this vending machine and it gives 20g of pet food for animals.

During this whole almost a year of war, we provided like 300 tons of food for the homeless.

But you cannot build a home for them, At least you can feed them.

What we need is awareness is there is much more homeless pets here on the streets with money.

Without money, we will just protect them in any possible way.

Good point of this war if it can be called good point, that people say I don't speak Ukrainian because before they said to us like we don't speak Russian, they didn't know the difference between Russia and Ukraine.

I hope this will have ended after this winter, but iin what way it will end oo we need to take this reality and do whatever we can to.

Bonding with our companion animals is beyond wonderful.

They are part of who we are.

It's another sister, a member of the family, but they live inside your heart.

It's that intangible bond with animals, a kind act, any kind act is like a pebble thrown into a pond.

It makes ripples on the surface, but also when it drops to the bottom, it changes the pond.

One little act can change the world.