[dogs barking]
-As Russia started invading Ukraine, Asya Serpinska
took the hasty journey back to Hostomel.
Going in the opposite direction of a town fleeing,
she was determined to get back to her animal shelter.
-So I was going to war, under shells and bullets,
I was aware of it, I did it consciously.
[shouts in Ukrainian]
-More than 700 dogs and 100 cats
were waiting for her.
But she would soon end up taking on much more.
-Sense of responsibility is stronger than fear.
Responsibility is stronger than fear.
This is what was pushing me here.
-Bullet shells and shrapnel still scatter the ground here.
-Shells of different caliber were flying here.
Grads, large caliber machine guns, heavy artillery, anything.
The ground was shaking, like an earthquake.
-Remnants of the terrifying month-long ordeal,
as Russian troops surrounded the area.
-The dogs that were outdoors, many escaped from their cages,
they would tear holes with their teeth,
and were running around.
[dogs barking]
Well, imagine there were around three hundred dogs indoors,
they used to stay outdoors.
Only around two or three hundred dogs stayed outside.
-A Russian soldier shot and killed her dog,
Jina, for barking.
-Like a normal dog, it sees a stranger and it barks!
Moreover, it's their territory,
any dog defends its territory, it's their nature.
We buried Jina underneath a tree.
-Another was killed by shrapnel near these cages.
But not everyone shared Serpinska's
sense of responsibility to the animals.
She took in every animal from a local zoo, except for the lion.
When Russian soldiers placed a mine outside of the cage,
she bribed soldiers with two cartons of cigarettes
in a plea to give the lion food and water.
-It was quite an explosion: the land mine exploded.
And they said, "You may now enter."
-At a neighboring stable,
at least a dozen abandoned horses were killed in a fire
after being shelled.
Nine of her dogs, nearby at the time,
died in that fire, too.
-I can only imagine how those horses were neighing,
beating their heads and hooves
on their box stalls, trying to escape from there!
-When Russian troops were losing the battle
in their final days here, soldiers came to the shelter.
They were paranoid that Serpinska and her staff,
who were busy taking care of hundreds of animals,
were coordinating with Ukrainian forces.
-They did not believe us.
They said, "One of you has been calling,
and because of your call, we've been fired upon.
-Russian soldiers bloodied and beat
one of the shelter workers after finding his phone hidden.
Serpinska secretly threw her phone
into this barrel of water outside.
-And when I put inside, water was.
-Soldiers then held her and her workers captive,
threatening to shoot them.
-And they locked us in the room,
closed the door outside and said,
"We are attaching a land mine to the door,
you try to get out, you are dead."
This Serhii came and opened [the door] for us.
And there probably weren't any mines.
The just scared us.
He said he was kept tied up all night, lying on the floor.
And they went through his phone,
calling every contact to figure out if he did it.
-A few days later, Russian forces withdrew from Hostomel.
For 77-year-old Serpinska, this is less a story of survival,
but rather her example of duty to responsibility.
-If I were assigned to do something for people,
I would be protecting and rescuing people.
It doesn't matter who you protect:
children, people, animals, nature.
The most important thing is responsibility.
Rescue animals to remain human.
[dogs barking]