You're reading: Villagers try to save animals starving on Ukrainian farm

Video of pigs dying of starvation or a cow rotting alive in its own excrement shocked many after a TV channel screened the horrors occurring in a private farm in Vinnytsia Oblast.

The residents of the village of Obidne invited the journalists of 1+1 TV, asking for help in saving hundreds of cows and pigs that were agonizing at a private farm. 

Some of the poor cattle were living their last hours, others were terribly starving as was seen on the video. 

The villagers showed a number of animal corpses lying inside or buried under the snow outside of the farm. 

“I have no words,” one of the former farm’s workers  lamented.

The farm used to have around 1,000 of cattle in Soviet times, but the debts made its owners reduce three times the number of animals and stop paying salaries to the staff. So, most of the workers left and the cattle remained without food and care. 

 When the farm’s co-owner showed up, the outraged people started to cry and hit her in front of the camera. 

Anatoliy Strutynsky, executive director of the firm owning the farm, refused comment, calling the events “a provocation.”

The local prosecutors said they started a probe over this case after the villagers addressed to the police.

Ukraine’s legislation presumes criminal persecution for cruelty to animals. 

In July 2012 Oleksiy Vedula, a serial killer of stray dogs, who was also recording the slaughter and posting the video in social network, was sentenced to four years of imprisonment. 

Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at grytsenko@kyivpost.com