An Indian doctor living in Ukraine bought two big cats from the Kyiv Zoo approximately two years ago, and now that he is stranded in the country after the Russian invasion, he has stated that he will not leave home without the felines.
The doctor, identified as Girikumar Patil, has lived in Severodonetsk, a small town in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region, for almost six years, The BBC reported.
Since the conflict began, Dr Patil, who is single, has emerged from his cramped basement only to get food for his cats – a male jaguar who is 20 months old and a female panther who is six months old. The jaguar, he explained, is a rare cross between a male leopard and a female jaguar.
Dr Patil, 40, told the publication that he had purchased 23kg of sheep, turkey, and chicken meat from neighbouring villages at four times the average price to feed the felines.
"My big cats have begun spending nights with me in the basement. There have been severe bombings in the area and cats are scared.”
He said that the cats are consuming less food than usual: “I will not abandon them,” Patil stated.
"This is the second war I am living through. But this is scarier,” he told The BBC.
Patil stated that he previously resided in Luhansk, where Russian-backed militants have fought Ukrainian forces since 2014 despite a ceasefire agreement. His home and an Indian restaurant he founded in the vicinity were destroyed during the conflict, he added.
The doctor, who is from Andhra Pradesh in Southern India, stated that he spent $35,000 (£26,460) roughly 20 months ago to purchase the panther and jaguar from the Kyiv Zoo. He stated that the zoo permitted private sales of animals as long as the owner had adequate facilities to keep them.
He stated that he moved to Ukraine in 2007 to pursue a career in medicine and has been a practising orthopaedic surgeon since 2014. At present, he works in a government hospital in Severodonetsk that was closed when the war began.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has drawn almost universal condemnation around the world, sent more than 1.5 million Ukrainians fleeing from the country, and triggered sweeping Western sanctions against Russia aimed at crippling its economy.