His colleagues have confirmed that a British guy was hurt while attempting to rescue animals in southern Ukraine.
John Carl, an Odessa Cat Crew volunteer, drove to Kherson to help organisations rescue thousands of animals from the devastation floods caused by the explosion of the Nova Kakhovka dam.
Teams from UAnimals have spent more than a week exploring remote places on motorboats in order to rescue pets and wild animals from rooftops and drowned homes.
John was on one of these boats when Russian forces shelled it on Wednesday night, UAnimals said in a post on Instagram.
‘On the evening of June 14, Russians shelled the UAnimals boat,’ it read.
‘At that moment, there was a volunteer from the charitable foundation Kyiv Tails and foreign volunteers from the organization Odessa Cat Crew on board.
‘The girl, Oksana, sustained a minor leg injury, while British volunteer, John Carl, was injured and taken to the hospital.
‘Russians are deliberately destroying all living beings in Ukraine.’
UAnimals, which has been working to shelter and rehabilitate animals during the war, added his condition is now stable and that he is conscious.
Separately, Odessa Cat Crew said John had been operated on in Kherson and that he is currently recovering from his injuries.
For more than a week, volunteers just like John and Oksana have been escaping Russian missiles and bullets to help stranded residents and animals in the region.
The region’s Ukrainian-appointed governor, Oleksander Prokudin said on Sunday the enemy was ‘deliberately trying to disrupt rescue efforts’.
‘Today, terrorists opened fire on three boats that were used to rescue 21 people from the flooded bank,’ he said on Ukrainian television.
‘Almost all of them were elderly and people with limited mobility. Russian soldiers fired at these people in the back.’
He said three people were killed and 10 injured, including two law enforcement officers, during the evacuation.
After the dam in Nova Kakhovka was blown up, entire neighborhoods of Kherson were left underwater, only further underscoring the horrors of the invasion.
The city was liberated by Ukrainian troops in early November, but since then has been regularly shelled by Russian forces from the east side of the Dnipro River.
Metro.co.uk caught up with Oleksandr Todorchuk, an ex-journalist who foundedUAnimals, hours after the dam explosion.
By the time his teams had arrived in Nova Kakhovka, the water levels had raced up by metres.
Videos shared online show them wading through waist-deep water to rescue pets and livestock left behind.
At the time, Oleksandr said: ‘We are doing our best to save the animals, but more will die than we can save.
‘When people are evacuating, they have no time or ability to take the animals, or even unlock rooms where they are sleeping, so this creates a huge problem.’
Metro.co.uk has contacted the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office for a comment.