Find your paw-fect match with our Companion Collection 🐾, for pets and people who support Ukraine.
Working with contemporary artist Oliana Moroz, we have created a collection of merch for you and your animal companion — whether you're going out for a walk, to an event, or just staying cozy at home.
Best of all, it's all for a good cause. From Sep. 29 - Oct. 20, 100% of the collection's profits will go to 12 Vartovykh, a Ukrainian charitable foundation that evacuates animals from areas near the front line. We are aiming to raise $10,000 to help 12 Vartovykh bring rescue animals back to health and find them loving homes.
Since Russia's full-scale invasion, 12 Vartovykh has driven into front-line towns and villages to rescue the animals.
The 12 Vartovykh (12 Guards) Charitable Foundation operates a comprehensive animal welfare organization — rescuing and evacuating animals from combat zones, giving them the treatment and rehabilitation they need, and finding them loving homes. This requires their team to drive into dangerous areas near the front line, putting themselves at high risk.
In 2025 alone, the team helped over 8,000 animals, and it's already helped nearly 3,000 more this year.
Oliana Moroz is a contemporary artist and illustrator from Donetsk Oblast. She grew up among animals, and as a child she rescued and cared for abandoned animals around her home — a home which is now a war zone, and from which 12 Vartovykh now rescues abandoned animals.
Now, Oliana draws on memories of her home for inspiration. In her work, people, animals, and plants exist together. She lives with her bull terrier, Ban, and a 13-year-old cat called Zhankod.
When Russia's invasion forces people to flee their homes to save their lives, taking their pets with them is often not an option. Some refuse to leave, staying in danger rather than abandoning the animals they love. Others face an unbearable choice — and to save their own lives, they have no option but to escape alone. The heartbreaking truth is that large numbers of Ukrainian animals — cats, dogs, and farm animals — are left near the front lines, without homes or owners. The animals are hungry, homeless, and often in need of urgent medical care.
This has become a widespread issue in Ukraine, and many people at the Kyiv Independent have pets adopted from front-line areas. The volunteers who help them have to drive into dangerous areas near the front line, put themselves at risk, and often go into debt in order to give them the medical treatment they need.
No animal should have to suffer because of Russia's war.
