Watch: Animal charity Blue Cross is reuniting pets left in Ukraine with their owners who have fled to the UK

One year on from Russia invading Ukraine, national pet charity – Blue Cross – reflects on their continued efforts to support the innocent pets and their owners caught up in the devastation.

Since launching the ‘Blue Cross Ukraine Pet Welfare Fund’ soon after the outbreak, the charity funnelled 100 per cent of donations to their carefully selected partners working with pets and people in Ukraine and its borders, or pets displaced by the war.

These partners include Save the Dogs whose work so far from the Blue Cross Fund includes providing pet food (more than 500 tons, enough to fill over 20 trucks), 450 dog houses, 1000 flea and tick collars to help with parasite control, thousands of jackets and blankets as well as much needed vet treatments and rehabilitation for the dogs displaced when a pet shelter was bombed. Other partners include TAC.social in Romania and TOZ In Poland. The Blue Cross Fund also provided support for the Ukraine Equestrian Federation including funding for a shelter with housing for 40 horses displaced by the war.

Aside from the Fund, Blue Cross also stepped in to provide crucial quarantine care to pets belonging to people fleeing Ukraine. Their Hertfordshire centre provided this safe and loving space for a total of 13 pets belonging to Ukrainian refugees arriving in the UK, before they went on to be reunited with their owners. While these pets have found their happy ending there is still much work to do for the pets whose owners were forced to leave them behind. The Blue Cross continues to support partner organisations to continue this vital work.