The soldier was sitting in the make-up room, facing a mirror surrounded by light bulbs. An assistant warned him: "If an air raid siren sounds but there's no missile, we'll keep filming the show. If not, we'll head for the air-raid shelter."

Alexandr Liashuk nodded politely as a make-up artist powdered his nose. In a few hours' time, the 27-year-old Ukrainian soldier from the 122^nd Territorial Defense Brigade would appear on the set of the Ukrainian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, filmed in Kyiv in September.

If he won, he had promised to share the prize money: half for his family and half for his brigade, to repair and buy military equipment. The young man didn't come alone. His cat, Shaiba, was waiting in the next room, dressed in a miniature camouflage uniform, sitting calmly with a Ukrainian patch around his neck. "I consider him my teammate," explained Liashuk. "So, why shouldn't he have a uniform too?" There was no irony in his words: The soldier was being totally sincere, as was his affection for his four-legged companion, who was pampered like a child.

'Hold him in my arms'

Shaiba was still a kitten when Liashuk found him in October 2022, abandoned in a cardboard box near his military post in the Odesa region. "We couldn't leave him there, winter was coming," said the soldier, in uniform, the word freedom tattooed on the back of his neck. Since then, Liashuk has never parted with his feline companion, except when his missions in Donetsk or Pokrovsk, in the Donbas region, were too dangerous. "When I get back to our post, the first thing I do is give him a hug. Shaiba is so adorable that it's enough to cheer me up. He's a secret weapon sent to us by NATO," he joked.

The duo became famous in December 2022, when Liashuk decided to build a "miniature checkpoint" for Shaiba in the trenches. The video, posted on TikTok, garnered over 2.6 million likes. Following the post, several people contacted the soldier to offer financial assistance. Since the Russian invasion of February 2022, online fundraising has become a common way of supporting the army.

The idea caught on: What if the cat's popularity could help the brigade buy the weapons and equipment it desperately needs? The soldier launched a fundraising campaign featuring Shaiba, which raised $700. Stamps featuring Shaiba's paw imprint were sold in 17 countries, from Japan to Chile and the US.

Over the course of six campaigns, Liashuk raised over 5.5 million hryvnias (around €125,000). This substantial sum has enabled his unit to purchase vans and defense systems against FPV kamikaze drones, widely used by the Russians. "At every fundraiser, Shaiba plays a key role, because people love him," explained the soldier, stroking his cat, who was purring happily in his arms. "He raises far more money than campaigns involving only human beings. I have lots of friends who have tried to raise money without success."

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