Local Animal Rescuer Back to Ukraine for Eighth Mission

Tom Bates of Lakebay, 72, returned home Sept. 10 from Ukraine after spending almost seven months volunteering to feed, help, or evacuate abandoned animals and their owners.

It was his seventh trip to Ukraine since Russia invaded Feb. 24, 2022. He has spent about 740 days there since then.

“There is more work to do, even though sometimes it feels like I’m driving around putting a Band-Aid on a big wound and moving on to the next one,” Bates said. “But the animals are eating, we’re getting some animals to care, and every little step is a little victory that you’ve got to hold on to. You’ve got to make that your goal: just the little victories.”

Bates is a retired long-haul truck driver who had never been to Europe before landing in Przemyśl, Poland, March 23, 2022, without a plan or connections, just to see what he could do to help. He began volunteering for local animal rescue efforts, organizing warehouses, and driving trucks to Ukraine to deliver supplies. He later volunteered for the United Kingdom nonprofit K9 Rescue International, then co-founded an offshoot called K9 Rescue Ukraine in 2023, based in Poltava, and managed by a single employee who earns $100 a month.

He plans to return to Ukraine for the eighth time Nov. 10.

“It seems to me that the suffering has increased a lot in a lot of different ways,” Bates said. “Kyiv is the worst of the places to be as far as the (Iranian) Shahed drones and missiles go.”

But he has had more encounters with the light, electronic anti-personnel drones used by the Russians. They carry a small explosive charge packed with shrapnel, something like a flying mine.

“Everything is changed because of the drone warfare,” Bates said. Drone operators search for military targets, but when the battery is getting low, they will attack anything.

“I had a friend who I worked with this trip who was targeted by a drone while he was standing on the back of a car,” he said. “They were evacuating people; they knew there was a drone around, but then the operator decided to go after this guy. My friend stepped off the bumper just as the drone came in, so he was just concussed.”

Checkpoints, long stretches of road, and even vehicles, are covered with anti-drone netting. “The vehicles over there look like Mad Max vehicles now; they have cages all over them. I carry collapsible metal animal crates; those make a pretty awesome drone screen when you put them together,” Bates said.

“When I’m in these areas, I’m driving fast and don’t stop, and I use a drone detector,” he said. “It’s this little unit that tells me if there’s something in the air and if I’m being tracked. They can fly very fast, about 120 kilometers an hour, but they’re not going to chase you because that uses a lot of battery. The preferred attack mode is to hit you in the windshield, to maim people and disable the vehicle.”

Nevertheless, K9 Rescue Ukraine has expanded its efforts to import and distribute donations and to deliver animals to safety.

“We have a lot of support in the U.K., and that’s thanks to (his colleague) Rebecca Renmant-Oliver,” Bates said. “We’re also increasing our financial donations, but we spend them just as quick as we get them. And that’s mostly on fuel, food, postage, and the transportation from the U.K. We’ve been sending pallets on big trucks. We had one come in with 25 pallets,” he said.

“Somebody in the U.S. donated a bunch of doggie wheelchairs. Man, I gotta tell you, nothing is more exciting than to see a dog that has three legs or two legs and has been immobile and so depressed get into one of those. It’s like, ‘Wow, I got a sports car.’ ”

In addition to animal food and medicine, Bates delivers supplies for people, too.

“Quite a bit of clothing,” he said. “Diapers, toys, bicycles. You go anywhere near the war zone, and people that have been getting hit, they’ve lost everything.”

The biggest challenge remains getting animals to safety.

“We’ve been working with a shelter near Kharkiv,” Bates said. “The people that run it are just amazing. They’re working with nothing, and they do everything. They are very successful at adopting animals out; they have a clinic where veterinarians come to volunteer. We need to work with people like that, who are interested in the adoption end of it, clearing up space for other animals.”

Bates plans to establish an American nonprofit adjunct to K9 Rescue Ukraine to make financial donations easier and hopefully larger. No one in the organization gets paid, besides the one employee managing logistics in Poltava. Bates now has a Ukrainian bank account and sorted some visa problems for crossing the border. “I’m on the government’s radar because I’ve been there so much,” and dealing with officials has become simpler as a result.

“I spend a lot of time traveling,” he said. “But what it’s come down to is we can’t do everything, and we need to know that and limit our focus so we can do a good job with one thing instead of doing a Band-Aid for everything.”

“Tom is an independent operator,” said Gretchen Roosevelt; she and Tom have been married for 32 years. “What he’s doing there, he could not do in this country. Who am I to say you can’t do that anymore? They are at war, the need is endless, I understand that part. I wish there were deeper pockets available. A lot of the money Tom gets is from our friends, $25 here, $100 there, and that’s helpful because it goes a lot farther there.”

Bates plans to return to Ukraine on at least one, probably two consecutive 90-day visas Nov. 10.

“I’ve created something over there that feels like it needs me to be a part of it,” he said. “Right now, it just seems like there’s a tragedy every day, but the people keep picking themselves up, keep going forward. They (the Russians) keep throwing weapons and bombs at Ukraine, they keep blowing up civilians, but it just really hasn’t made a dent in their psyches. People are angry. People aren’t scared — they’re angry.

“I remember once seeing this kid on the side of the road as I was driving by, and he was tracking me, and as I go by he gives me a  salute. Just broke my heart, you know? The young people are the ones that really bring joy and some satisfaction. Ukraine is going to be in good hands.”

For more information, go to www.k9rescueukraine.com.