Lost Ukrainian cat reunited with family seeking refuge

But upon arrival at SFO, Yaemiko escaped the car in the traveling chaos. Yelena Makovskaya, who was picking him — along with her own cats — up from the airport, said his escape was traumatizing.

“I was screaming, I was crying. It is not my cat,” Makovskaya said. “She escaped from war and then [this?] It was horrible. … The cat disappeared. I was with my husband, we were looking for him, people who work in cargo, they helped us.”

After losing her son, who was killed in the war, Ivanenko said it was hard for her to remain in Kyiv, so she eventually sought refuge in America with her family — her mother, her daughter, Anastasia Pachaeva, and eventually Yaemiko, the cat.

After Yaemiko went missing, Ivanenko and her daughter regularly made the drive from Sacramento to San Francisco to look for him.

“It was very sad. I was very worried he was hungry, that he was cold, he may be ill, he may be dead. I don’t know,” she said.

Unbeknownst to the family, Yaemiko was dropped off at Redwood City’s Nine Lives Foundation on Monday, Executive Director Liam Montgomery said, as the shelter regularly spays and neuters homeless cats.

“A cat came in, it didn’t look like a regular homeless cat. It had really curly hair, it was very beautiful,” Montgomery said. “Speaking with client services, this isn’t a regular cat. We scanned the kitty and the microchip manufacturer based in Kyiv, in Ukraine.”

After realizing Yaemiko originally came from Ukraine, the shelter began its search for his owners, through the microchip company, then to Makovskaya and finally to Ivanenko and her daughter, Montgomery said.

“When the cat came in, it just looked very unique and the breed of this cat — it was quite bizarre … our staff, front desk staff, vets, all worked together to solve the mystery of this cat,” he said. “We were able to reunite these people that risked everything.”

Their reunion at Nine Lives was an emotional one.

“I can’t believe it. When Yelena called me and said he was found, it was the happiest day,” Ivanenko said. “It was a very happy end to this story.”