An Interview with Oleksandr Todorchuk

Founder of UAnimals

February 24, 2026

Oleksandr Todorchuk is a Ukrainian community activist who founded the humanitarian movement UAnimals in 2016, initially campaigning against the exploitation of animals in circuses. Since the start of Russia’s full scale invasion, UAnimals' work has focused on rescuing animals from frontline and conflict affected areas, including evacuations, supplying shelters with food and medicine, and rebuilding shelters damaged by attacks.

Todorchuk speaks about the practical realities of rescue under shelling, and why he believes Europe cannot treat ecocide as a side issue, or assume its consequences stop at Ukraine’s borders.

The Nature on Fire installations use art rather than statistics to communicate environmental loss. What did you want these installations to achieve that a report, a press conference, or a petition could not?

To give a little context,  “Nature on Fire” is a project about environmental consequences of the war made by UAnimals and ISAR Ednannia. In terms of the project three Ukrainian artists Sandra Bereza, Marysia Prus, and Liliia Stetsiuk created the installations that show different sides of damage. We deliberately placed these installations in Ukrainian embassies in five European capitals. These are spaces frequented by politicians, advisors, diplomats — people who shape agendas within their circles and hold influence at the European level.

These individuals have already seen hundreds of reports and attended dozens of press conferences. They work with numbers every day. This does not mean that statistics and data are ineffective, but our efforts to convey important messages to Europeans must be comprehensive.

That is why UAnimals launched the international campaign #StopEcocideUkraine: we organised hundreds of rallies across all six continents, held an exhibition in Brussels dedicated to Russia’s war crimes against nature, installed a replica of a Russian missile in central New York, and implemented more than a dozen other projects.

IMAGE: UAnimals

In the “Nature on Fire” project, we also chose to shift the focus — speaking not in the language of statistics, but in the language of personal experience, culture, and emotion.

Communicating the consequences of ecocide through an artistic form allows people not only to see, but to feel the scale of the damage caused by Russia’s war.

We know that the total environmental damage is estimated at 6 trillion hryvnias. This figure does not include an assessment of the environmental condition in the temporarily occupied territories. As a result of shell explosions, attacks on infrastructure, and the destruction of chemical facilities containing hazardous substances, 3 million tonnes of harmful pollutants have been released into the atmosphere — spreading not only across Ukrainian territory, but also into Europe.

Today, Europe is investing in hundreds of programs aimed at protecting the climate and nature, and restoring the environment. Yet at the same time, a war continues on the continent and it undermines these efforts every single day. In November 2025, the EU allocated €358 million to the environmental LIFE programme, while environmental damage caused by Russia’s war over just the past year (from the end of 2024 to the end of 2025) amounts to more than €63 million.

We can appeal endlessly to the devastating figures brought by the war. But behind these numbers lies something that can be understood and truly felt through other, less rational forms.

When an evacuation request comes in from a frontline area, what is the first question you ask that determines whether you go, wait, or say no?

We do not ask such questions of the people who submit evacuation requests for animals. Once we receive a request, we assess only security factors: whether our team can enter the settlement. We study the routes, check road access, and consult with the military and local residents. However, even thorough preparation does not eliminate the risks, as we operate in frontline regions that are constantly shelled by the Russian army. Over the past year, drones have struck our vehicles twice. One vehicle was completely destroyed and remains in Donbas, burned to the ground. Fortunately, our rescue team survived and was able to evacuate the animals. One animal was severely injured, but after long-term treatment, we were able to help it recover.

IMAGE: UAnimals

Evacuation missions to the frontline regions in the East and South of the country are always a risk. The only way to avoid that risk would be not to go there at all — and that is not an option for us. Ten years ago, we founded this organisation with a clear mission: to save animals and value every life. When the situation is too dangerous, and we understand that entering a particular settlement is impossible, we still look for ways to help. We assess different options: whether local volunteers can transport the animals to a safer location; if our evacuation team is currently deployed in another city, whether our partners or volunteers can step in to rescue the animals.

We do this because we understand the value of going the extra mile — it means saving lives. Since March 2024, the organisation has evacuated more than 9,500 animals, delivered over one tonne of animal feed, and allocated millions of hryvnias to rebuild shelters and rehabilitation centres. We continue our work despite everything. And we invite everyone to support our mission and subscribe to: https://club.uanimals.org/en.html

In your experience, how is cruelty being used as a tactic in occupied or frontline areas, and what should civilians and responders understand about the risks when empathy becomes something that can be exploited?

There are documented cases in the Kyiv region where, during the occupation, Russian soldiers killed animals in front of their owners to create psychological pressure.

After the destruction of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, the occupation authorities failed to rescue animals from the flooded areas of the Kherson region — including those at the “Kazkova Dibrova” zoo in Nova Kakhovka, where nearly all the animals perished.

At the Askania-Nova Biosphere Reserve, some animals died, others were illegally removed, and the territory was used for military purposes.

Looking ahead to recovery, what principles should guide rebuilding for animals and nature: demining priorities, restoring habitats, reshaping farming landscapes, and ensuring the rebuild moves beyond the pre-war baseline rather than reinstating it with all its ecological costs?

Nature must be restored now — we cannot wait for the fighting to end.

Every day, animals are dying, including species on the brink of extinction. Ecosystems are being destroyed, forests and protected natural areas are burning. Wherever we have access, we must act immediately. Once the territories are liberated, an enormous amount of work will await us. We will witness the full scale of the losses caused by Russia’s war — and sadly, some of them will be irreversible.

When it comes to demining, state-level priorities today are often given to areas linked to food production and humanitarian security. This is understandable from the perspective of human survival.

At the same time, protected natural areas remain overlooked, largely because there are virtually no established global models for the humanitarian demining of nature reserves and other environmental sites. It is more complex, more expensive, and less “visible” in terms of immediate economic return.

UAnimals has already taken its first steps toward demining protected natural areas. We supported demining efforts in the Kamyanska Sich National Nature Park. In particular, we purchased essential equipment, including drones to identify hazardous zones, monitor fires, and track animal movement, as well as two MDDSR1 “Kseon-M” mobile systems for detecting enemy drones.

The photo shows TM 62 anti tank mines recovered over eight days of work using the equipment provided by UAnimals

IMAGES: UAnimals

When you think about Europe in 2026, what is the biggest misunderstanding you still encounter about ecocide in Ukraine, and what single truth tends to cut through it?

The greatest misunderstanding is to believe that the destruction of nature — entire ecosystems, the killing of animals — is merely a consequence of hostilities, rather than a deliberate objective of Russia’s war. And the second is to assume that these losses remain confined within Ukraine. We have numerous documented facts that prove otherwise. Russia is deliberately destroying wildlife, devastating natural territories, and using national parks and nature reserves to station military equipment. Some protected areas have effectively been turned into military bases. Environmental losses are not collateral damage. Russia employs the destruction of all living things as a method of warfare. It is one of its instruments of war.