Hundreds of Fur Coats Sent to Ukraine, Courtesy of PETA

For Immediate Release:
October 23, 2023

Contact:
Nicole Perreira 202-483-7382

To support locally based Life for Relief and Development’s aid efforts in Ukraine, PETA has donated nearly 1,000 fur coats and accessories—all sent to the group by people who had a change of heart about wearing fur—to help keep Ukrainians warm in winter. The items were sent to women recently relocated to a nursing home in Kyiv Oblast, to a group of widows volunteering alongside frontline defenders, and to a center helping internally displaced people.

PETA’s donated coats arrive in Ukraine.

“Nothing can change the fate of the animals who endured violent killings for their fur, but PETA can think of no better use for their pelts than to help Ukrainians weather the harsh winter,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “We’re appealing to the public to donate their fur items to help those in need, the only people who can wear these symbols of suffering guilt-free.”

“Life for Relief and Development has been working to provide aid to Ukraine amid the ongoing conflict there,” says Life for Relief and Development National/International Programs Coordinator Nicole Hoisington. “Life for Relief and Development thanks everyone who contributed to PETA’s fur-donation program and made it possible to offer some relief to desperate Ukrainians preparing to endure the cold winter under extreme circumstances.”

PETA has worked with Life for Relief and Development for more than 15 years, ensuring that fur coat donations have reached people in need in Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, and elsewhere. In addition to the Ukraine delivery, the groups are currently sending more than 200 coats to Afghanistan in the wake of the recent deadly earthquakes there. PETA also uses repurposed furs in informative displays and sends them to shelters for people experiencing homelessness and to wildlife rehabilitation programs (to be used as bedding for orphaned animals).

Animals raised and killed for fur are held in tiny, filthy cages on fur farms, causing some to self-mutilate and cannibalize their cagemates, before they’re electrocuted, bludgeoned, gassed, or even skinned alive.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.