Russian soldiers kill animals for fun in Ukraine PHOTO

Ukrainian authorities are accusing Russians of executing animals by hanging them.

"Killing is entertainment for them," said a tweet on November 14 from the Ukraine Ministry of Defense, accompanied by photos of dead animals at a site allegedly abandoned by Russian soldiers, Newsweek writes. "When the occupiers are unable to torture & kill civilians, they do it to animals."

Reported among the animals was a rare grey dwarf hamster, said by the Ministry to be listed in the Red Book of Ukraine—an official national list of threatened animals, plants and fungi protected by law in Ukraine.

Killing is entertainment for them.
When the occupiers are unable to torture&kill civilians, they do it to animals.
At one position abandoned by russians, animals were found executed by hanging.
Among them, a rare gray dwarf hamster that is listed in the Red Book of Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/64V7E0tvIQ

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) November 14, 2022

The photos were published just one day after The Washington Post reported that seven raccoons, two female wolves, peacocks, a llama and a donkey were stolen from Kherson Zoo.

Oleg Zubkov, owner of a private Crimean zoo called Taigan Lion Park, and assistants grabbed raccoons with bare hands and manhandled the llama "into a dilapidated, windowless van," according to The Washington Post, which cited videos recorded by multiple Russian media outlets.

Zubkov described the thefts as a "temporary evacuation" and said on YouTube that the animals would all be returned once Russia reoccupies Kherson.

"The occupiers stole everything from Kherson: paintings from art galleries, antiquities from museums, historic manuscripts from libraries," the Ukraine Ministry of Defense tweeted last week. "But their most prized loot was a raccoon they stole from a zoo. Steal a raccoon and Die."