When pro-Kremlin journalist Anna Dolgareva wrote in her Telegram that the only good news she has about the Russians’ retreat from Kherson is that her friend was able to steal a raccoon from the Kherson zoo, the netizens were mystified.
The mystery was solved the following day: apparently she was referring to the robbery of the Kherson zoo by Oleg Zubkov, the owner of a safari park in Crimea.
On a video titled “Oleg Zubkov catches raccoons with his BARE HANDS,” published on his own youtube channel, he calmly documents the theft of animals from the Kherson zoo. A donkey, llama, unnamed carnivores are packed into a bus, where, he says, they will stay until they reach occupied Crimea.
Separately stands a cage with raccoons, and Zubkov proudly shows off his skills of raccoon-catching and carries the raccoon off to deportation by the tail.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1591871176573337607?t=oJT20t6IEYTO-o9LAyYJig&s=19
The raccoon-stealing was, apparently, approved by the Russian command, the leader of a Ukrainian animal rights movement UAnimals Oleksandr Todorchuk wrote. “They took most of the zoo’s collection to Crimea: from llamas and wolves to donkeys and squirrels,” Todorchuk wrote.
On November 5, even before the liberation of Kherson by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the director of the Crimean lion park Taigan Oleg Zubkov said that a decision was made to “evacuate” the animals from Kherson to Crimea by order of Kherson’s top quisling official Vladimir Saldo.
And on 9 November, Zubkov said that two wolves, a llama, a donkey, seven raccoons, peacocks, guinea fowls and pheasants were brought to his park. According to him, the animals were placed in cages.
The animals were not all that Russia stole in Kherson. As well, 15,000 artworks and medical equipment from the hospitals were looted en masse.
