‘We are hoping to find a home in Cork’: Ukrainian family fleeing with seven dogs rescued from rubble

AN EXTENDED family of five Ukrainian refugees, fleeing the Russian bombardment of Mariupol, is hoping to find a home in Cork that can accommodate their seven rescue dogs.

“In Bulgaria, where we are now, people say to us, ‘why do you have seven dogs, why don’t you kill them or set them free?’ so this is why we are hoping to come to Ireland, because we hear Irish people are kind to animals.”

Vlad Makarov, who until a month ago was a sailor working out of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, spoke with The Echo from outside of Varna in Bulgaria and said he and his family are hoping to move to Cork in the coming weeks.

For the past month, Mr Makarov has lived in a car with his wife Valentyna, his mother Alena, his aunt Alisa, and Alisa’s two-year-old daughter Maya, sharing that cramped space with seven dogs they rescued from the ruins of their home city.

“We couldn’t just leave them behind to die in the rubble, so for a month we have lived in our car, moving, moving, moving, no time to stop, no time to rest.

“A lot of roads have been destroyed, so we often have to turn back, and we have to find new directions,” he said.

Mr Makarov said he and his family had driven through Moldova and were now in Bulgaria, and they hope to come to Cork because they have heard from Ukrainian people already settled in Ireland that Irish people are friendly toward Ukrainians and are kind to animals.

He said he had left Ukraine just before president Volodymyr Zelenskyy made it mandatory for all Ukrainian men between the age of 18 and 60 to stay and defend the country.

He said and his family are struggling to come to terms with the devastation of their country.

“We had jobs, we had apartments, we had lives, and then our city was destroyed and we lost everything.

“On the 24th of February we awoke at 5.30am to hear shooting, there was smoke everywhere, smoke from buildings, smoke from tanks, it was just chaos because nobody knows what is going on,” he said.

“We abandoned the city, just taking what we could carry in our hands.”

He said he and his family are hoping to find a home in Cork that will be able to accommodate the family and their seven canine friends.

Mr Makarov said they had a long drive ahead of them, as they couldn’t fly the dogs to Ireland, but they have been very moved at the kindness already shown to them by Irish people.