Project summary

The Problem:

As a veterinary surgeon and the Executive Director of the Society of Veterinary Business Owners (SVBO) in Ukraine, I have personally witnessed the collapse of the biosecurity of Ukraine, which has created a frontline epidemiological vaccuum. In regions like Sumy and Kharkiv, the full-scale invasion has dismantled the professional structures that exist to protect the health of my fellow Ukrainians, their beloved pets, and my country's wildlife. Currently, 30% of Ukrainians reside in rural regions and are subject to "veterinary care deserts" that make it extremely difficult to get the necessary care for their animals. Additionally, over one million companion animals have been displaced from their homes due to civilians having to flee war-impacted areas or because their owners have been wounded or killed in the ongoing invasion. My colleagues and I are not merely providing service to pets in need, at this point; we are trying to raise awareness for and effectively manage a rapidly escalating biosecurity crisis that has the potential to affect all creatures that call Ukraine home.

1- The Biological Threat:

The "One Health" framework poses animal health as a primary barrier to the spread of human disease, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that 5-10 animal bites are reported in frontline areas. Each of these animal bites represents a potentially fatal transmission of rabies. Without immediate immunization and population management of displaced companion animals, a biological vaccuum is forming where disease spreads unchecked from displaced domestic animals to the wildlife and even into Ukrainian cities.

2- Ecological Impact:

Beyond the zoonotic transmission of fatal diseases, this crisis is creating impacts on the Ukrainian wildlife. Starving, displaced animals have triggered a wave of over-predation on the local wildlife, further destabilising an already fragile ecosystem and triggering further decline of the local wild bird and small mammal populations. However, this impact is not localised. The proverbial "biological clock" is ticking against our efforts as winter approaches. Our winters average around 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Farenheit) and are often quite wet on top of these freezing temperatures. With this impending reality, litters born to unaltered dogs and cats in the fall face a near-certain death by hypothermia or starvation, due to the strain on Ukrainian resources. This makes our intervention a time-critical endeavour to mitigate the cycle of suffering and death before the winter freezes begin.

3- Infrastructure Resilience:

SVBO has been preserving the infrastructure of our profession despite the invasion and funding for this project helps us continue to do so. By funding clinical services, we provide essential income to keep our network of 130+ licensed practictioners operational in these frontline zones. This ensures that the critical expertise required to shield civilians and animals from disease outbreaks can remain on the ground and operational rather than losing valuable talent to displacement or loss of operational equipment. This is especially important in an environment like this where many practices that are operational are forced to rely on veterinary students and paraprofessionals to fill the skill gap that invasion and displacement has wrought.

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

This project relies on three central goals:

Goal 1: Targeted Sterilization - In order to make the greatest impact on the displaced animal populations of Ukraine, we prioritize female dogs and cats, as this most directly aids in population suppression. Clinically, these animals also benefit from decreased risks from conditions like pyometra and mammary cancer. This also significantly reduces hormone-driven roaming and inter-species aggression, which contributes to mitigating the amount of animal bite incidents.

Goal 2: Rabies Immunization - Every animal that is seen in our clinics as a part of our program receives a rabies vaccination to create a biological shield between displaced animals and surrounding communities where bites are common.

Goal 3: Digital Accountability - Every single intervention we undertake results in the animal being microchipped and registered on Animal-ID.net. We maintain digital reporting records on Vchasno.ua, supported by geotagged photos accompanied by our public hashtag (#SaveVets_SafePets) to ensure there is real-time transparency for every dollar spent in our interventions.

Our operational outputs are all linked to a strategic outcome of our programme:

Surgical Volume -> Immediate reduction in birth rates, prevention of pyometra and dangerous roaming behaviours

Immunization Volume -> Enhances biosecurity against zoonotic rabies transmission

Digital Registration -> Verification via geotagged photos and Animal-ID.info database usage for auditing purposes

Professional Support -> Preserving licensed veterinary clinics to serve as frontline biosecurity hubs and critical care for the most vulnerable members of the Ukrainian community - our pets.

Ecological Impact -> Reduction in over-predation of wildlife

The Solution:

This is where my colleagues and I come in. The #SaveVets_SafePets programme builds upon its foundations as a proven, grant-backed Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) and biodefense model across Northern, Eastern, and Southern fronts, including Sumy, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, Odesa, and Vinnytsia. We want to make a second push to deliver our comprehensive "tri-care" package that includes sterilization, rabies immunization, and microchipping (with a publicly available database that helps grantors see our work in and action and prevents duplication of efforts). By leveraging our national network of licensed clinics, we can transform the chaotic displacement of conflict into an organized, publicly auditable barrier against disease and unchecked population growth.

How will this funding be used?

Any funding we recieve is greatly appreciated. Our minimum funding request is $10,000 USD. Our minimum funding would enable us to activate our network and facilitate 215 "tri-care" interventions:

Our cost structure would be as follows:

Direct Impact (85%): Clinical Services (spay/vaccine/chip), medical consumables, transport:

$8,500

Operational Support (15%): Legal, bookkeeping, registry maintanenance, etc.:

$1,500

Impact: Our all-inclusive unit cost is approximately $46.50 per animal. This covers our "tri-care" package (Spay, Vaccine, Chip, Registry) and provides exceptional value by preventing an estimated 2,150 unwanted births (using an annual yield of 10 babies as an average) within the first year alone.

We believe that our cause is worth the investement, and if the Manifund community does too, we would love to see $500,000 USD in funding toward our cause. With effective cost control, our max funding would allow us to provide treatment to just over 9,100 animals in need. This would allow us to prevent the suffering of 91,000 unwanted births. This would prevent added strain on the Ukrainian ecosystem and exponential population growth.

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

You might be thinking that this seems extremely ambitious, and, in most circumstances, you would be right to think that. However, SVBO has a strong position in Ukraine and an equally strong track record of success.

We have the team, and we have the talent.

In terms of our success, SVBO is currently the only professional association in Ukraine representing veterinary practitioners and employing European standards. We are also the sole Ukrainian member of the World Veterinary Association (WVA), FECAVA, and UEVP.

In our pilot phase of this programme, we managed $345,000 USD granted to us by Trupanion and MightyVet, which allowed us to deliver 7,416 audited interventions accross 42 of our member clinics. Our radical stance on transparency also makes us uniquely qualified to carry out this work in an ethical and transparent manner with publicly available registration database, geotagged photo verification, and public social media reporting. Our current team consists of SVBO's secretary, members of our board, our member clinics and independent vets, and myself. We are also supported in our funding efforts by an intern, who helps us deliver our funding requests in English.

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

Should this project fail, the most likely outcomes are:

1. Unmitigated Zoonotic Rabies Epidemic: Stray companion animals in war-affected communities are primary vectors for fatal zoonotic rabies. Failure to maintain immunisation barriers leaves both animal and human populations exposed to rabies transmission.

2. Exponential Overpopulation and Unnecessary Environmental Suffering: Failing to complete sterilizations prior to the fall and winter breeding cycles will lead to a surge in unwanted litters. Born in wet and freezing conditions, these animals are likely to suffer starvation and/or hypothermia.

3. Collapse of Frontline Veterinary Practices: Practitioners in our network have already lost their facilities and lives to the invasion, and many more of our colleagues are suffering from severe financial strain. Through our initiatives, SVBO pays these private clinics for their services and helps put funding into a system on the brink to give them a vital lifeline to remain operational to serve their communities.

4. Wildlife Over-Predation and Ecological Damage: Starving dogs and cats will be forced to scavenge for survival in war-affected and de-occupied areas, and this heavy hunting could create a domino effect that leads to reduction in wild populations that creates a long-term imbalance in our ecosystem.

5. Rise in Aggression and Pathological Suffering: Unaltered animals are highly susceptible to life-threatening and often painful conditions, such as pymoetra and mammary cancer, and will exhibit aggression and aggressive roaming behaviours.

6. Loss of Crucial Training Grounds For Students: Frontline universities have increasingly shifted to online-only education, depriving veterinary students of practical experience necessary to the surgical practice. Failing to sustain a clinic network closes off the only opportunity that some of these students have to acquire real-world surgical skills under the supervision of senior veterinarians.

We recognise that these consequences are quite severe, and we recognise several main risks that could lead to failure:

1. Security and Military Escalations: The target deployment spans the highly volatile frontline and near-frontline territories. Sudden, intense military activity or direct physical damage to participating clinics can halt clinic operations, disrupt active surgical lists, and jeopardise the lives of the animals and our veterinary teams.

Mitigation: We have experience in these regions, and we are able to mitigate the risk by developing strategies that allow SVBO to mobilise our network to intervene and aid other member clinics. In the case of severe disruption, we would seek to provide all possible aid to the endangered practice, up to and including helping evacuate team members and animals from the impacted zone as possible and helping our member to redeploy the grant funds in another clinic or region. While this is not a foolproof strategy, due to the unpredictability of the invasion, we commit to doing everything in our power to protect our members and our members' patients.

2. Severe Power and Infrastructure Blackouts: Our tri-procedure protocol relies heavily on stable refrigeration for vaccine storage, running water, and lighting. Continuous energy grid blackouts can halt surgical throughput and compromise the vaccine cold chain.

Mitigation: Many of our members' clinics already have and use low-power equipment to preserve electrical capacity in blackout conditions. Our member clinics often already have generators on-site to power essential systems in a blackout. However, we dedicate ourselves to the responsible administration of our programme, so we will seek to solidify a strategy so all members know when and how to call on our network for support should a prolonged blackout affect the stability of vaccines or other essential resources in order to ensure smooth administration to the best of our ability.

3. Severe Telecommunications Disruptions: Our real-time transparency initiative relies on stable upload to Vchasno.ua and registration in Animal-ID.net database. Any prolonged communications and network outages could create reporting backlogs.

Mitigation: In a blackout, if low-tech powered information relay is possible, we will endeavour to maintain real-time accountability in whatever format is possible, even if it means engaging SVBO's secretary or our grant writing intern to complete data entry and social media posting. However, should a cascading failure occur, Animal-ID supports offline data capture to bypass connectivity gaps. If this cannot be completed, we commit to logging exceptions to our real-time accountability policy so our donors know exactly what delayed us.

How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?

Our organisation has been applying for other grants via our intern. However, to date, we have not received grant funding. We currently derive our operating funds from membership fees paid by our members. We will be continuing to seek grant funding to aid our members in frontline and near-frontline regions.