A small bit of "positive" news: wife's uncle and his wife were able to evacuate from Kozacha Lopan today towards Dergachi (more south towards Kharkiv) earlier today. They got on an evacuation bus and are heading to a friend's place. Wife's family was begging them for months to leave KL when news of the buildup began shaping up a few months ago. The reason for their delaying was that his wife is a nurse and was asked to stay to help. Now that KL has all but been abandoned by the UA army, there is no need for her to stay. Another reason we learned is that they foster abandoned dogs and had 6 dogs in their care. Many people who left when the village was liberated in 2022 made the decision to abandon their pets, so they took in 6 of them. Hard enough to abandon these innocent animals, let alone find a place that will take in 6 dogs.
We are not certain what is happening with the dogs. My wife doesn't want to ask him unless he brings it up, because it was obviously a source of contention in the first place, so last thing she wants to do is set him off if in fact he had to make the difficult decision to leave them behind. Can't imagine having to make that choice, but I think that is what they had to do.
Should not be forgotten that so many pets and animals have been affected in this senseless war. There was one girl who stayed with us in 2022 who told us that officers at the train stations were forcing people to literally leave their pets behind before boarding as obviously people took priority. She hid her little kitten in her jacket and made it all the way to Gdansk to our place with it. Poor thing was covered in piss and #### when we met them.
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