THIS B.C. MAN WAS REJECTED FROM MILITARY SERVICE IN UKRAINE. NOW, HE’S SAVING PETS HURT AND ABANDONED BY WAR

In February 2022, Bruce Perry felt a strong urge to help in Ukraine.

“I have military experience. I have first aid training. I’m retired. I have no dependents. And my grandfather was from Ukraine. So I thought, what the heck, I’ll go,” the Savona, B.C., resident told CBC’s Daybreak Kamloops.

After a series of interviews, however, the 76-year-old learned he wasn’t eligible for military service. But that didn’t stop him.

In May 2022, Perry travelled to Ukraine seeking other ways to help. He first assisted an organization supporting military efforts, delivering vital supplies to the frontlines.

After 90 days as a foreign visitor, he had to leave the country and couldn’t return for another three months. Back on his farm in Savona, a rural community about 35 kilometres west of Kamloops, he began looking for other Ukrainian causes where he could make a difference.

That’s when he discovered Animal Rescue Kharkiv (ARK).

Founded in 2016 as a small volunteer-run animal shelter in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, the organization expanded in response to the war, becoming a full-scale rescue operation. Since then, ARK has saved more than 29,000 animals, according to its website.

“The minute I got into the [ARK] clinic, I knew this is for me, this is the thing for me to do here,” Perry said from his apartment in Kharkiv.

In January 2023, he began working as a caregiver at the ARK veterinary clinic, where his first task was feeding young puppies.

“We get a lot of litters of puppies and kittens whose mothers have been killed in the war zone or so badly injured that they cannot care for their babies,” he said in an email.

“A real heartbreaker. Poor little ones with no mother—except an old man.”

Challenging, but rewarding work

The work hasn’t been easy. Perry describes the scenes he’s witnessed as “absolutely horrendous.”

Now approaching 77, he finds that working at the ARK clinic gives him a profound sense of purpose.

“It gives me a reason to get up in the morning, and it gives me satisfaction at the end of the day, knowing that I did something to help a creature that couldn’t help itself,” he says.

“These animals are helpless. They’re out there with no one to intervene. There are thousands of them—and there will be thousands more.”

‘Winter is going to be very difficult’

Travel rules dictate that Perry can only stay in Ukraine for six months. Come spring, he’ll return to Savona.

He says it’s important to stay with ARK through the winter, and be there during power outages and when communication goes down to support the team.

“This winter is going to be very difficult. The infrastructure here is targeted every day,” he says.

He plans to return once he’s allowed, and keep working with the animal rescue as long as he’s needed.

“I’ll just keep it up as long as I’m physically able to do it.”