Race against time to halt rabies spread from Ukraine

A disease that has been largely eradicated from Europe is raising its head in a war-torn country where millions of abandoned pets are running wild. Ahead of a film exposing the public health crisis, Joe Shute talks to those affected

Over the past two years operating along the Ukrainian front line, Khrystyna Drahomaretska has gained a veteran's understanding of the battle tactics employed by the invading Russian troops.

During the day, the 27-year-old explains, they will freely dispatch cheap kamikaze drones to kill anyone on sight. At night, however, the high-value drones equipped with hi-tech sensors are used more sparingly to target vehicles instead.

That was the calculation she made two weeks ago while conducting a daring night-time rescue operation a few hundred metres from the Russian positions near the city of Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region where Putin’s forces are currently pushing towards.

Mindful of the night vision drones, she ditched her van and crept towards her target on foot. But the enemy started firing anyway, with more than a dozen missiles launched towards her position. Hiding behind a copse of trees, one exploded nearby sending a knuckle-sized piece of shrapnel searing straight through her leg.

Khrystyna applied a tourniquet and was taken to a nearby army base before being transported back to a hospital in Kharkiv where thankfully she was told the damage was just muscle and tissue. “The doctors told me I should spend one month in hospital on a bed but I said that’s impossible,” Khrystyna says. In the end, she discharged herself after two days; her mission was too vital for her to rest.

That mission is not some clandestine military operation, but rescuing and treating pets. Khrystyna is part of a network of civilian volunteers risking life and limb to combat one of the lesser-known catastrophes of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but one that is rapidly mushrooming into a public health crisis that could cross borders.