Russian Troopers Depart Animals Hanging in Bushes as ‘Leisure’: Ukraine

“Killing is leisure for them,” stated a tweet on Monday from the Ukraine Ministry of Protection, accompanied with photographs of useless animals at a web site allegedly deserted by Russian troopers. “When the occupiers are unable to torture & kill civilians, they do it to animals.”

Reported among the many animals was a uncommon grey dwarf hamster, stated by the Ministry to be listed within the Crimson E-book of Ukraine—an official nationwide checklist of threatened animals, crops and fungi protected by legislation in Ukraine.

The photographs had been revealed simply someday after The Washington Submit reported that seven raccoons, two feminine wolves, peacocks, a llama and a donkey had been stolen from Kherson Zoo.

Oleg Zubkov, proprietor of a personal Crimean zoo known as Taigan Lion Park, and assistants grabbed raccoons with naked arms and manhandled the llama “right into a dilapidated, windowless van,” in response to The Washington Submit, which cited movies recorded by a number of Russian media shops.

Zubkov described the thefts as a “momentary evacuation” and stated on YouTube that the animals would all be returned as soon as Russia reoccupies Kherson.

“The occupiers stole all the pieces from Kherson: work from artwork galleries, antiquities from museums, historic manuscripts from libraries,” the Ukraine Ministry of Protection tweeted on Sunday. “However their most prized loot was a raccoon they stole from a zoo. Steal a raccoon and Die.”

Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the minister of inside affairs of Ukraine, additionally uploaded a video of the animal theft. He stated that the “stolen raccoon…is preventing with all his power.”

At the start of the Russia-Ukraine struggle, animals had been a part of rescue efforts—which in some instances included assist from neighboring international locations.

Simply days after Russia’s February 24 invasion, animals from an animal sanctuary close to the capital metropolis of Kyiv had been evacuated and despatched to a zoo in Poland. The animals and people delivering them in transport someway survived the border crossing, even after their envoy was surrounded by Russian tanks.

Just a bit over a month later, zookeepers at one Ukrainian location made the choice to place down giant animals, together with lions and tigers, after enclosures had been destroyed by Russian shelling. Euthanization was the one possibility as a result of transporting giant animals was described as too advanced by one official.

Feeding stations for canines and cats grew to become routine to see throughout a few of Ukraine’s hardest hit areas within the first few months of the battle, notably as many animals grew to become displaced.

Ukrainian officers stated that by the tip of February, volunteers managed to obtain and course of greater than 700 animal rescue requests.

A number of animal-based organizations supplied meals stations and shelter and likewise tended to homeless animals—which included sending veterinarians to a refugee camp in Poland and offering humanitarian help.

Newsweek reached out to the Ukrainian and Russian protection ministries for remark.