When Jack was found in the ruins of Kupyansk in Kharkiv Oblast in north-eastern Ukraine, he was battered, depressed, malnourished, scared, injured and exhausted. He had spent seven months under the bombing raids, hiding where he could to escape Moscow troops who had occupied the city since the early stages of Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
He fled to be captured, just like a human, like the many Ukrainian civilians forced to live in the city’s catacombs due to the fury of Moscow troops. Jack is the German shepherd, deaf and with broken bones due to the Russian bombings in Ukraine, rescued by the troops in Kyiv and adopted by Andrea Bocelli’s family.
“Jack is the name we gave him as soon as we saw him, he was an inspiration,” Amed Khan tells La Zampa. He is Jack’s “godfather”, a very active philanthropist in theaters of war and crisis areas, and the reference person behind the story of the dog who has found a new life in Italy after enduring the hell of war. Khan has worked with the United States government since the 1990s, working in refugee camps in Rwanda, then with President Bill Clinton, still in Africa, and later with the Clinton Foundation in other disadvantaged areas. He then turns to finance to raise funds and builds his philanthropic activities. From there he starts a new path on the hot fronts of the planet.
The exciting encounter between Andrea Bocelli and the Ukrainian dog Jack
“I’ve been to Iraq, Syria, Somalia, I’ve evacuated refugees, built them houses, I organized the evacuation of Afghans with six of my charter flights from Kabul Airport immediately after the Taliban arrived,” he says. His tour of Ukraine began in 2005, and he boasts of a friendship with Vitali Klitschko, the “boxer mayor” of Kyiv. And it is precisely with the office of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he is organizing the evacuation of Afghans collaborating with the Ukrainian special forces in August 2021. In the months that followed, he kept in touch with the Kiev authorities and acted as a liaison with some offices of the American administration on some humanitarian issues.
Police dog Rem takes care of an 8-year-old boy whose parents died in a bomb attack in Ukraine
by Fulvio Cerutti October 31, 2022
“The war broke out on February 24 – he says – we were prepared and had already prepared preventive measures to evacuate some people from the country, especially friends and important figures”. From that moment his engagement in Ukraine became incessant and vital. “I was in Bucha, in Zaporizhzhia, immediately after the liberation, to help with the evacuation operations from Mariupol, I started out as a philanthropist to buy everything I could for the Ukrainian people and military, medicines, food, protective materials, me rebuilt orphanages and schools, houses and everything that could provide shelter for these people”.
It is precisely in the context of his tireless support of the Ukrainian cause that the meeting with Jack falls. “One day – he says – a friend called me, an army captain who commanded a unit of the 92nd Artillery Brigade stationed in Kharkiv.” It is one of the units involved in the Blitz counteroffensive, thanks to the Kyiv forces regained control of almost the entire north-eastern part of Ukrainian territory in September. Khan had supplied this department with drones, thermal jackets, generators and other material.
“We were in contact with the captain almost every day. When he called me the day he was in Kupyansk, one of the cities that had just been liberated, he sent me the photo of the dog that had just been found in one of the cellars under the ruins of the city. I was thunderstruck. That day I wanted to go to Kupyansk to get food and water because the city had been in darkness and without supplies for months, so I took everything the dog needed too.
The German shepherd was fed by the neighbors because his owners had fled to Germany and could not take him with them. “As soon as I arrived I went down to the basement where they found him and where he had spent so much time, the only sound that could be heard was that of the generators and artillery in the background.
This is how Jack was found, the dog rescued in Ukraine and adopted by Andrea Bocelli
The dog’s emotions are told in a video from their first meeting, recorded by a colleague of Khan’s. “He looked depressed, malnourished, scared, he’d spent too much time under the bombings,” says the philanthropist, explaining that he immediately gave him the name Jack, to which he is related. “Jack Khan says on his Ukrainian passport – explains Amed – so we’re related. Then we decided it would be best to find him a better home. I posted the video (from the first meeting) on Instagram and my friend Amos Bocelli (son of Andrea) wanted to know all the details of the dog’s story. Finally he wrote to me and asked if Jack needed a home. I said yes!”.
At this point, Amed and Jack are going to Kyiv to do all the veterinary checks and vaccinations required by the dog’s passport. “Then we looked for volunteers for the transfer, and two Ukrainian women, friends of one of my employees, took him to Italy!”. And so Jack landed in Forte dei Marmi on Andrea Bocelli’s estate. “With the creation of the family, we have worked together on many humanitarian projects, for Afghans, Yazidis and also in Ukraine – says Amed Khan – Of course it’s different this time because it’s a dog, but it’s always a nice story with one Happy end “.
***
Follow La Zampa up Facebook (click here), Instagram (click here) and Twitter (click here)
Don’t miss the best news and stories from LaZampa, Subscribe to the free weekly newsletter (click here)