Tom Bates may sit quietly at his Lakebay dining room table, but his phone pings every few minutes.
“I get about 45 messages a day,” he said. “Right now, there’s an owl rescue going on.”
Meaning in Ukraine, over 5,000 miles away and 10 hours ahead.
Bates, 70, returned in mid-August from his sixth trip to Ukraine, where he volunteers to deliver food and supplies to people in need and evacuate animals of all kinds injured or displaced by the Russian invasion that began Feb. 24, 2022.
He has spent about 540 days volunteering in Ukraine since his first trip in March 2022, over two and a half years of full-scale war.
Bates returned this time after just 90 days in Ukraine, the limit without a long-term visa. “I could’ve stayed longer, I kind of wish I had because of what’s going on right now in the Donbas,” he said. “Pokrovsk is about to be overrun, and they need evacuation. There’s more than one animal shelter down in that area that is just pleading with people to come and evacuate the animals. But then, where do they go? That’s the largest issue they have.”
In places Russians have captured, animals in shelters and their keepers have all been killed, he said. He’s documented the aftermath.
Bates is a retired truck driver who had never been to Europe. He can drive anything and fix almost anything. He landed in Przemyśl, Poland, March 23, 2022, and volunteered for local animal rescue efforts for three weeks, walking dogs, organizing warehouses, and driving trucks all over Ukraine to deliver supplies.
“Before retiring, my very last job was with the Washington State Fair Foundation, and I worked in a program called the traveling farm,” he said. “We had a truck that carried the sheep, goats, chickens, ducks, rabbits, pigs, and we’d have some portable pens we’d set up, and we’d teach elementary kids about agriculture. That was my animal experience. The pay was marginal, but it was a great job. We did a lot of good with that.”
He said the stars aligned to let him go to Ukraine. “Before the war, I wanted to go on a trip around the Black Sea. I’ve always been fascinated by the history of that area. I’m passionate about animals. They were victims, and I just knew I had something to offer, that I could do something about it.”
Bates has volunteered for small charitable foundations since the start of the war, hauling donated food and supplies across Ukraine and moving rescued dogs, cats, birds, and farm animals — and sometimes people — to safety in a series of aging vehicles. He found his network expanding so much that it made sense to form his own foundation, which he did with his main working partner, Nick Tadd, in 2023. Their Ukrainian nonprofit, K9 Rescue Ukraine, is based in Poltava and run by former marketing director Luda Khomenko.
“I deliver whatever is donated to us, but it’s generally canned goods, pasta, lots of nuts, animal food, of course, and a lot of clothing too,” he said. “I can find a home for just about everything. Adult diapers, kid diapers, medicine.” He’s transported donated generators and equipment for veterinarians, like exam tables, scales, and ultrasounds.
K9 Rescue Ukraine also makes use of the Ukrainian postal service, Nova Poshta, as much as it can.
“It’s incredibly efficient,” Bates said. “Anything you mail may take two days, across the country. We can ship a pallet of dog food from our warehouse in Kyiv to somebody, and Nova Poshta will come and pick it up, on the pallet, and deliver it on the pallet, and that costs us maybe $24.”
“It doesn’t take much money to get things done in Ukraine,” he said.
But even donating to pensioners who have not evacuated, because they have nowhere to go, is complicated.
“I can only give them the value of the average Ukrainian income per month without them being taxed, and the average income is 2,850 (Ukrainian hryvnia), which is about $69. And the documents require their tax number, their passport number, all the phone numbers, and all this other information. But Luda, our director, keeps us in line with that. She just seems to know how to navigate every aspect of the Ukrainian regulatory maze, and she’s connected to the animal welfare systems.”
Luda earns $100 a month.
The foundation’s goal is to get food and supplies moved when he’s not there. “Me driving all over Ukraine is not cost-effective (diesel is about $5.40 per gallon),” though it puts him in a position to get animals and people out. “There’s no substitute for that.”
Their last vehicle, a temperamental 2004 Nissan Patrol SUV from Poland, gave out on this last trip, and Bates acquired a 2010 Ford Transit van. “I was slowly paying for that, but we eventually traded what was left of the Nissan for the balance on the van. I’m happy to have it and it runs great, but the manual is in German, so that’s a pain.”
Bates managed to put 17 dogs in it one time. “They were all in crates, doubled up, and there were some big dogs. From Kharkiv to Odesa, this massive shelter that’s outside of town. I think it was an old dairy farm, and since the beginning of the war they have taken care of a massive amount of dogs. I had to stop the van once I think and say, ‘Hey, quiet down back there.’ Other than that, we did pretty well.”
He also transported eight rescued owls during this last trip, a slight increase.
“We have a direct line from the soldiers on the front to treatment to sanctuary,” Bates said. “I’ve seen all kinds: great horned, short-eared, barred. Usually, they’re chicks. The trees get blasted, nests are gone, the mom’s gone. But the soldiers care about them.”
He told a story about one of those chicks. “Robbie was an owl that was brought to us by a guy named Rob, a frontline soldier, and the battle was being fought in Robotyne (near Kharkiv). So we had Robbie, Rob, Robotyne. We lost Robotyne, we lost Rob, and we lost Robbie. That was pretty sad.”
Soldiers have given him birds, cats, donkeys — he even saw a rescued camel — and dogs, including pets soldiers had brought with them, sometimes from abroad, who decided they had to send them somewhere safer. “I met these soldiers taking care of puppies that were born under a pallet by this trench. It’s pretty unbelievable to think of the time they take to help these animals.”
Bates stays in a house in Kharkiv owned by a soldier who has been on deployment for over a year. “He’s got a girlfriend down the street, so when he’s on leave he stays there.”
The residential street has been hit repeatedly by Russian missiles. Neighbors just a few houses away have lost their homes, and sometimes their lives.
“It’s dangerous, but you go on. Most of these people have nowhere to go,” Bates said. “You just never know when you’re gonna hear that whistle of incoming. I’ve been just very lucky, extremely lucky.”
Bates plans to return to Ukraine within the next few months for another 90-day stay. Gretchen Roosevelt, his wife of 30 years, said of her husband’s work, “You get by, you know? It’s a lot. But clearly, he’s doing good and that’s really something. I’m not alone, I have support, I know he’ll be back at some point, and I know he’s gonna go back again, and I know that he could never replicate here what he’s doing there.”
“These other people behind the scenes are working the communication and logistics, and fundraising,” Bates said. “If I need to, I’ll say, ‘Can I get some fuel money for this one (mission)?’ And then they’ll go out and see if they can raise enough money to pay for the fuel. But they only do it as needed, so we don’t wear out the donors,” he said. “I still work here. I’m online every day for one reason or another, just checking in, trying to raise money. But that network is what is hard for me to leave behind. So yeah, I’m gonna go back.”
And then there are the people, like Igor, who spent six months in a hospital after he hit a mine with his car and now wants Bates to help him set up a new humanitarian aid depot that the Russians destroyed in his absence.
“I used to meet him in Pokrovsk all the time to transfer goods, and that’s soon to be a captured city. Every generator I’ve given him the Russians have blown up, so I know he needs generators.”
And he wants to check on Alona, whom Bates evacuated from Kramatorsk with her five Dobermans last year. She found a job with a breeder who turned out to be running a puppy mill. She stole as many dogs as she could and fled, and is now wanted by the police.
And he also wants to visit Andrey, 80, a retired Soviet Air Force captain who gave up his pointer, Archie, after he lost a front leg. “Andrey is outside of Kherson, right next to the Dnipro River, surrounded by destroyed homes,” Bates said. “He takes care of the animals left in the neighborhood, but he felt like he needed to give Archie a better chance. Andrey is a very experienced hunter, and Archie, you know, was his hunting dog.” It was an emotional parting. Bates has since helped Archie get a prosthetic leg.
“I really want to be there at the end of the war,” Bates said. “My military friends tell me we will drink vodka in Crimea. That’s a good goal.”
For more information, go to www.k9rescueukraine.com.
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