'Who will feed our cats?': Ukraine's cat cafe still open; owners refuse to leave

CNN's Erin Burnett who found that the cat cafe was the only place where she could get food saw a family fleeing Russian invasion inside the cafe. “They were smiling because they saw the cat wheel. You can not look at that and not smile and today any human being of this country needs the gift of a smile,” she said.

Lviv, a city in Western Ukraine, was almost shut on Friday, the second day of the Russia-Ukraine war, but the famous cat cafe is still open as the owners said they can't leave Lviv and to feed the 20 cats they have they need to be in the business. "Our cats are brave," the owners told CNN's Erin Burnett who tweeted how she ended up at the cute cat cafe, while she was looking for something to eat and everything else was shut.

The cat wheel of Lviv's cat cafe is on the move as the cafe is open and the owners said they are not going anywhere leaving their 20 cats. 

"It is a dark and heavy day here. But I found something that couldn’t stop a smile. The only food I saw open - Cat Cafe. The owners are making food with what they have - they smiled: Our cats are brave," Erin tweeted.

Follow live updates of Russia-Ukraine crisis

"The streets here were almost deserted by early afternoon. Nothing was open. Restaurants that were busy last week were totally shuttered. After filming around the city, I went out to get lunch for our team. After half an hour walking, the only place I saw open was the cat cafe. Inside was a family clearly fleeing the Russian invasion, their giant backpacks, blankets on them... but they were smiling because they saw the cat wheel," Erin Burnett said on her show as she described her experience at the cafe.

"If we go, no one will feed our cats. We will never leave Ukraine," the owners of the beautiful, well-behaved cats told the journalist. "They stay because they love their cats. It just made me realise at this moment that people stay for so many different reasons," the journalist said.