Asya Serpinska, 77, braved the Russian invasion of Ukraine and saved most of the 700 dogs and cats housed at her shelter in Hostomel, a town northwest of Kyiv.
And she also rescued a lion.
The Washington Post detailed her efforts in a story posted Tuesday.
For 22 years she has kept her shelter going in Hostomel.
"I knew it was my responsibility to look after them," she said of the animals at the shelter.
She was joined by three colleagues as Russian and Ukrainian shelling exploded overhead.
The Post noted Russian soldiers repeatedly entered her property and threatened their lives. Friends and family pleaded with her to leave, but she refused to listen.
"My place is here," she told them.
At one point, some of the dogs went running to the front gate as two Russian soldiers approached. One of the dogs was Gina, a black dog with two mismatched eyes.
One of the Russian soldiers coldly shot and killed Gina through the fence.
"Why are you shooting? They're good and kind," Serpinska yelled as the dog lay dead.
"Well, why are they barking at me?" the soldier replied.
Another time, a shell exploded at a nearby private zoo, which had been abandoned by its owners. The shelling touched off a fire which engulfed the building.
Serpinska and her co-workers braved smoke and fire to save peacocks and turtles.
"Only the lion got left behind," she said. "For five weeks, we would go there under shelling and bullets to feed that lion, because it had been locked in a cage and we didn't have the keys."
She cared for the lion every day until Ukrainian forces reclaimed the town.
"We have a saying, and it's important," Serpinska said. "For us, to save animals is to be human."
Meanwhile, NPR reported in early April that more than 300 dogs were found dead in another Ukrainian animal shelter after weeks without food or water.
Volunteers with UAnimals, who returned to the Borodyanka shelter outside Kyiv, the capital, said the dogs were forced to starve to death by Russian troops who had left them in cages for nearly a month amid constant bombings.
"With the shelter increasingly inaccessible due to the conflict, sadly many of the dogs perished," said Wendy Higgins, director of international media for Humane Society International.
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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