Europe | The cats and dogs of war

Europe is bending immigration rules for pets from Ukraine

Many refugees are bringing their best friends

A best friend in need
|KYIV AND LVIV

AFTER A 12-hour train journey from Mykolayiv, a town on Ukraine’s south coast, Tatiana is ready to take her family into Poland. She stands outside the station in Lviv, a Ukrainian city 80km from the border, next to a pile of suit cases, her eight-year-old daughter and Gucci, a tiny dog whose camouflage-coloured coat is too thin to stop him shivering. “It was a simple decision” to bring Gucci, says Tatiana. “He is part of the family.” The EU has helped by relaxing the paperwork for refugees’ pets, as well as for the refugees themselves.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “The cats and dogs of war”

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