The Ones Left Behind: Yana and Zhenya on Animals, Evacuation and Life After Kupiansk

By Matthew Parish

Monday 28 September 2026

In an earlier Lviv Herald interview, I spoke with Yana and Zhenya, a couple from Kupiansk who remained in their home through occupation, liberation and the return of increasingly intense Russian attacks. Eventually they fled, taking with them as many of the animals that had accumulated around their home as they could, and began rebuilding their lives in Havrylivka, a village elsewhere in Kharkiv Oblast.

Yet their story did not end with evacuation. Yana and Zhenya now care for dozens of cats and dogs displaced by the war, including animals seriously injured by shelling and animals separated from their owners during hurried evacuations. Their experience also tells a wider story about what happens when a frontline community gradually empties: who and what gets left behind, why some people cannot bring themselves to leave and how ordinary civilians find themselves assuming responsibilities they could never have imagined in peacetime.

I returned to Yana and Zhenya with a further series of questions about the animals, their evacuation from Kupiansk and what the idea of “home” means once the place in which you spent your life has been devastated by war.

Matthew Parish: You remained in Kupiansk for a remarkably long time. What finally made you realise that staying was no longer possible?

Yana and Zhenya: We stayed in Kupiansk until the very last moment. At some point the drones began hunting us. One hit our car but did not detonate. Every morning we woke to the buzzing of drones looking through the windows of our house, and several times soldiers shot them down above us.

There is a difference between hiding from what feels like random shelling and knowing that something is actually hunting you. That changed everything.

Matthew Parish: What happened when you finally left? Was it a carefully planned evacuation?

Yana and Zhenya: Not at all. The evacuation happened unexpectedly and nothing went according to plan. We filled the car with cats and simply drove, hoping for the best.

On the way we managed to arrange with other volunteers to look after the cats temporarily while we searched for somewhere to live. We stayed with Zhenya’s sister in Kharkiv. After some time we managed to return to Kupiansk once more and collect cats that we had not been able to catch the first time.

We took whatever possessions would fit in the car. Zhenya took tools, Yana took clothes, pillows and dishes — basically whatever we saw that seemed useful. We had emergency backpacks prepared with the supposed essentials, but in the circumstances they were almost irrelevant.

Matthew Parish: You eventually settled in Havrylivka. Why there? Did you have any previous connection with the village?

Yana and Zhenya: No. We were simply looking for an inexpensive house that we could live in immediately and which had a large enough yard for the evacuated animals. We had never been to Havrylivka before and did not know anybody here.

Local people and friends helped us enormously with furniture and other things. We are gradually making a home here.

Matthew Parish: How many animals are living with you now, and where do they keep coming from?

Yana and Zhenya: Today we have 37 cats and five dogs, although the number constantly changes. We find families for kittens and then new animals appear. Volunteers and soldiers regularly bring us more.

Matthew Parish: Are many of the animals coming from the frontline physically injured?

Yana and Zhenya: Very many evacuated animals have serious injuries caused by shelling. We see missing limbs, shrapnel wounds and spinal injuries. Many of these animals have to be treated in specialist veterinary clinics.

Matthew Parish: We naturally think about the physical injuries caused by war. But can you also see psychological differences between animals that have experienced the frontline and those that have not?

Yana and Zhenya: Absolutely. We have animals here that have never experienced the war and others evacuated directly from the frontline. Their behaviour is completely different, particularly when they hear suspicious noises.

Matthew Parish: People sometimes criticise owners for evacuating without their animals. You have seen the realities of evacuation yourselves. Is that criticism fair?

Yana and Zhenya: People evacuate into the unknown. They do not even know whether they themselves will have somewhere to live. Finding accommodation where somebody will accept you with animals is a matter of great luck.

Often people hope that they will find somewhere to stay and then return for their pets, so they leave the animals behind “for a couple of days”. It is not an easy decision and we should not condemn them for it.

None of this should ever have happened.

Matthew Parish: Have you ever managed to reunite an animal with its owners long after an evacuation?

Yana and Zhenya: Yes. We treated one cat whose paw had been torn off and posted a video of him on Instagram. His owners recognised him. They had lost him during their evacuation six months earlier. When we returned him, they could hardly believe that it was really their cat.

There was also an old dog who was almost deaf and blind. We managed to return him to his family after two years. They also recognised him from one of our videos.

Matthew Parish: More than 40 animals must require an enormous amount of food, medicine and veterinary treatment. How do you manage financially and practically?

Yana and Zhenya: We buy food and medicines from online shops and travel to Kharkiv or Chuhuiv for veterinary treatment. Sometimes volunteers and our followers help us.

Specialist food for sick and elderly animals is one of our biggest expenses. An online shop from which we used to buy discounted food for frontline areas recently closed, so we think the situation may become more difficult.

Treating seriously ill animals is also extremely expensive. Ordinary people who follow us on social media help to pay the veterinary bills. Many send parcels containing food and presents for the animals.

Matthew Parish: Is there a veterinarian nearby whom you can call in an emergency?

Yana and Zhenya: No. We have to travel to Kharkiv or Chuhuiv.

Experience has taught us to keep medicines for different emergencies. We are not doctors, but circumstances mean that we have to be ready and we administer first aid ourselves.

Matthew Parish: Your Instagram and TikTok accounts have therefore become more than a way of simply showing people the animals. Have they become part of the rescue operation itself?

Yana and Zhenya: Very much so. We receive enormous help from our Instagram and TikTok followers. They make it possible for us to save animals with complicated injuries, particularly when we urgently need money for an expensive operation or treatment.

It also creates a responsibility. We report back to our followers and show them what is happening in our little shelter. And there are also plenty of funny situations here that we want to share with somebody.

Matthew Parish: Before you left Kupiansk, you were helping people as well as animals. How did that begin?

Yana and Zhenya: We started helping people and animals from the beginning of the war. When there was no electricity, we had a generator and people came to us to charge their phones. There was always water available at our house.

Our friends brought bread and we distributed it for free — sometimes even with buns. We drove humanitarian aid around in our car, brought petrol and gas and took animals for sterilisation.

A lot of people knew us. To abandon everything meant abandoning everybody. We couldn’t do that.

Matthew Parish: You have described dozens of animals, each presumably with its own story. Is there one animal living with you now whose story best explains why you continue doing this?

Yana and Zhenya: Every animal has a sad story, but we can tell you about a black kitten called Shurik.

He was evacuated from Kupiansk with a spinal injury. Volunteers found him dying of starvation. We understood that he probably would not survive, so we asked them to take him directly to a veterinary clinic.

The doctors performed a miracle and he survived. A few days later we brought him home.

Later he had an MRI scan and reacted very badly to the anaesthetic. He suffered clinical death. The doctors had to perform another miracle.

After that, we began to believe that cats really do have nine lives. Shurik has already used two of his.

He lives with us now. We look after him and are trying to teach him to walk on his hind legs again. It is going to be a long and difficult process.

Matthew Parish: Let me ask you something less tangible. What did you really lose when you left Kupiansk — not in terms of your house or possessions, but as human beings?

Yana and Zhenya: Our whole life remained there.

Almost our entire circle of friends and acquaintances has changed. We have permanently lost the feeling of being safe and the certainty that tomorrow will be all right. We think that will remain with us forever.

Matthew Parish: Do you still dream of returning to Kupiansk one day, or has Havrylivka now become home?

Yana and Zhenya: Most likely returning will remain a dream. The city has been destroyed.

But in our hearts we will always be there. If returning becomes possible, we will consider it, but it would be a completely different city.

Matthew Parish: After everything you have experienced — occupation, liberation, bombardment, evacuation and beginning again somewhere you had never lived before — what does the word “home” mean to you now?

Yana and Zhenya: Home is now what we lost and what we can lose again.

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How you can help

Yana and Evgeny’s work continues, and caring for rescued animals requires a constant supply of food, veterinary treatment, medicines and suitable shelter. A fundraiser has now been established to support their small animal shelter in Gavrilovka and to help them continue caring for animals displaced, abandoned or injured during the war. Readers who would like to support their work can donate or share the appeal through ⁠their GoFundMe fundraiser.

In communities close to the front, relatively modest contributions can make a tangible difference. Supporting the shelter means helping Yana and Evgeny provide food, warmth and medical care to animals that might otherwise have nowhere to go.