When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for foreign volunteers, 76 year old Bruce Perry of Savona, British Columbia thought his military experience, first aid training, and Ukrainian grandfather made him the perfect candidate, but after a series of interviews he was rejected for military service due to his age. Perry refused to give up on helping Ukraine, traveling there in May 2022 to work with an organization bringing supplies to frontlines until visitor rules forced him to leave after 90 days, and when he returned to his farm 35 kilometres west of Kamloops he discovered Animal Rescue Kharkiv, an organization that began as a small volunteer shelter in 2016 but expanded dramatically after the invasion to rescue more than 29,000 animals. The moment Perry walked into the ARK veterinary clinic in January 2023, he knew this was his calling, starting as a caregiver whose first job was bottle feeding young puppies and kittens whose mothers had been killed in war zones or were too badly injured to care for their babies, creating heartbreaking scenes of poor little ones with no mother except an old man.
The work hasn’t been easy, with Perry describing absolutely horrendous scenes of dogs and cats arriving with broken legs, missing limbs, missing eyeballs, fur burned down to the skin, and shrapnel wounds after being left behind when owners fled drone and rocket strikes with no time to collect pets or were killed themselves. Now closing in on 77, Perry says working at the clinic has given him a sense of purpose and a reason to get up in the morning, knowing he did something to help creatures who couldn’t help themselves and are out there helpless needing human intervention with thousands more coming. Travel rules dictate Perry can only stay six months at a time, so he’ll return to Savona come spring, but he says it’s important to stay through winter when infrastructure is targeted daily and power outages occur to support the team during the most difficult season. Perry plans to return once he’s allowed and keep working with the animal rescue as long as he’s needed, proving that when one door closes for service, determination and compassion can open another door where you’re needed even more, turning military rejection into a mission that’s saved thousands of innocent lives caught in the crossfire of war.
