A lioness, cockatoos and two bears… Vladimir Putin’s “gift” to North Korea

Russia and North Korea hand in hand, more than ever. Far from the conflicts and politics of the two countries, it's a matter of animals this time. Russian President Vladimir Putin offered North Korea dozens of animals for a zoo in Pyongyang, Russia announced Wednesday, a new illustration of the rapprochement between its two allied countries against the West and in the conflict in Ukraine.

“An African lion, two brown bears, two domestic yaks, five white cockatoos, 25 pheasants of different species and 40 mandarin ducks were transferred from the Moscow Zoo to the Pyongyang Zoo,” the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources said. The minister, Alexander Kozlov, who visited North Korea, stressed that it was a “gift from Vladimir Putin”.

Two years of close collaboration and a mutual defense pact

His ministry released a video showing the animals, locked in wooden crates, being unloaded from a cargo plane. It also shows the lioness in her new glass and concrete cage at the Pyongyang Zoo.

Vladimir Putin had already recently given 24 purebred horses to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who for his part gave dogs to the Russian president. The two countries which consider the United States as an existential threat have made a rapprochement at high speed since Russia launched an attack on Ukraine in February 2022.

They signed a mutual defense pact this year and Pyongyang is accused of supplying very large quantities of ammunition, missiles and even 10,000 soldiers to the Russian army. Westerners also fear that in return Moscow could help North Korea accelerate its nuclear and missile program.