She stood in the doorway with one small bag, trying to make a choice. Her neighbors had already fled, and the shelling was getting closer. Yet she just couldn’t make herself leave. Not without her dog.
Scenes like this have played out across Ukraine since the full-scale invasion. People fleeing artillery and drones have carried dogs across their shoulders, tucked rabbits into backpacks, and watched children clutch turtles as they crossed borders.
Many delayed escape, or refused it entirely, because they couldn’t abandon animals that were part of their family.
At first glance, these decisions can seem irrational. In fact, they reveal something essential about how civilians endure prolonged terror, and what it takes to sustain a society under constant threat.
Russia’s war is an assault on the psychological foundations of civilian life as well as a military campaign, and understanding how Ukrainians maintain emotional resilience is central to their capacity to endure and ultimately prevail.
“When people are facing the fear of death, they can’t live every moment thinking about their own death, or the death of their children, so they shut down their emotions,” Dr. Richard Mollica, from Harvard Medical School’s Program in Refugee Trauma, said in an interview.
He has experienced the phenomenon repeatedly in war zones and in communities affected by disasters. The psycho-historian Robert Jay Lifton termed it “psychic numbing.”
It allows individuals to function in environments of constant danger, but it comes at a cost. As emotional responsiveness diminishes, so does the ability to feel attachment, empathy, and even the value of one’s own life.
And it’s an erosion that matters at a national level. A society that loses its capacity to feel is a society that becomes more vulnerable to despair, fragmentation, and manipulation.
This is where animals enter the story, not as a sentimental detail, but as a stabilizing force.
“You wake up in the morning with fear of death and annihilation,” Mollica said. “And then your dog jumps on you, gives you love, and, for that moment, you’re living in the present. You can feel again.”
Animals interrupt psychic numbing by restoring emotional connection in a way that is immediate, physical, and reliable, he said. In doing so, they help “dignity restoration” — the phrase he uses to describe the reawakening of a person’s sense of worth and humanity.
Across Ukraine, this process is happening quietly: a cat curled against a chest in a cold apartment, a dog waiting at the door of a damaged home, a horse nuzzling a hand in a farmyard within range of artillery.
They are part of the way civilians remain psychologically intact under prolonged stress. (Pets are also key for many soldiers — in a much-publicized event this month, Ukrainian forces used a drone to rescue a dog and a cat from the frontline and flew them 12km (7 miles) to safety.)
Ukraine’s system of emotional resilience depends on rarely recognized infrastructure: veterinarians, animal shelters, and their supply chains.
Veterinarians treat animals pulled from rubble, care for wounded military dogs, respond to mass abandonment, and, when necessary, perform euthanasia under extreme conditions.
Even in peacetime, veterinarians in the US and elsewhere have among the highest suicide rates for health professionals, and in Ukraine, the pressures are magnified by war, moral distress, exhaustion, and continuous exposure to suffering.
“They’re overwhelmed,” Mollica said. “They need support.”
When veterinary systems falter, the effects cascade. Animals suffer or die from treatable conditions, and the bonds that sustain civilians weaken. The emotional scaffolding that helps people endure begins to erode.
And this vulnerability is not lost on Russia.
Liberated areas report deliberate cruelty toward animals by the occupiers, including the destruction of shelters, killing of livestock and pets, and the targeting of facilities for animal care. Such actions are about humiliation and psychological degradation rather than battlefield necessity.
Ukraine’s resilience depends not only on weapons and logistics, but also on the psychological endurance of its people, and protecting those bonds is a strategic imperative.
First, veterinary services should be recognized as civil resilience infrastructure. This includes ensuring access to mobile veterinary units, emergency supply chains, and medications in frontline and recently liberated areas.
Second, support for veterinarians should be integrated into mental health initiatives. Targeted programs, from peer support to trauma-informed care, can help sustain a workforce that has a vital role in civilian well-being.
Third, the protection and restoration of animal shelters and facilities should be included in reconstruction planning, alongside schools, clinics, and housing.
Finally, international donors and partners should consider animal care as a key part of a broader strategy to support societal stability during prolonged conflict.
Ukraine has demonstrated extraordinary adaptability and innovation under pressure, and its ability to sustain that performance will depend on the resilience of its people, as well as its military capacity.
In that context, the everyday bonds between people and their animals take on strategic significance. Ukraine’s animals are not on the margins of this war; they are part of the way the country endures it.
Mitzi Perdue is a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and Co-Founder of Mental Help Global
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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