‘They won’t survive without us’: The grandmothers of Odesa caring for Ukraine’s stray animals
Even after a night of heavy bombardment, Olga wakes up at dawn and gets ready to feed Odesa’s cats.
“This city is my whole life,” the 74-year-old tells The Independent. Each day, she tends to the 50 cats that roam the debris and burnt out buildings in her neighbourhood, a consistent target of Vladimir Putin’s bombs.
Olga’s husband and son have both been dead for some time now, yet she doesn’t feel lonely – and she says she has long stopped panicking when air raid sirens go off.
“People are evacuating on their own, but I haven’t looked into doing that.”
Olga is among a group of elderly people left to look after abandoned pets and community strays. Even before the war, Ukraine had a large stray animal population of up to an estimated 200,000 dogs and many more stray cats roaming the streets, according to the Naturewatch Foundation. Since the start of the war, thousands more pet dogs and cats have been lost or abandoned.
Experts have told The Independent that people who stay in their war-torn towns and cities often end up feeding dozens of animals despite having very limited resources of their own.
The work begins at 9am: “I go out to feed them. I start from the furthest points and end by the sea,” she says. Olga feeds the cats in her yard, neighbouring gardens, parking lots, and on the slopes along the way to the sea.
“Since childhood, I have loved cats very much,” she says.
Her favourite cat Lora, who she has nicknamed Chernushka, survived a tumour on the neck the size of a walnut. Since then, Olga has become very attached.
”She loves pâté and the tastiest food I can give her because she went through many surgeries. I had to nurse her back to health for a long time, so she became like a sick child – the most precious one.”
It is this love of animals that has stopped her from leaving Odesa despite the dangers; her biggest fear is not for her own safety – it’s leaving the animals defenceless.
“They simply won’t survive without us humans,” she says.
While not on the frontline, Odesa has been targeted by Russia with intensified strikes in an attempt to strangle Ukraine’s commercial links with the outside world. Attacks have taken place along the coastline, targeting vessels and port infrastructure while Moscow tries to protect its own ships through the Azov-Black Sea basin.
On the other side of the city and totally unbeknownst to Olga, 73-year-old Nataliia remains a devoted carer to 13 pets and 27 strays.
