An unlikely refugee from the war in Ukraine — a rare Asiatic black bear — arrived at his new home in Scotland on Friday and quickly took to a meal of cucumbers and watermelon.

The 12-year-old Yampil was named for a village in the Donetsk region where he was one of the few survivors found by Ukrainian troops in the remains of a bombed-out private zoo.

Yampil, who had previously been called Borya, was discovered by soldiers who recaptured the devastated city of Lyman during the Kharkiv counteroffensive in the fall of 2022, said Yegor Yakovlev of Save Wild, who was among the first of many people who led the bear to a new life.

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    LONDON (AP) — An unlikely refugee from the war in Ukraine — a rare Asiatic black bear — arrived at his new home in Scotland on Friday and quickly took to a meal of cucumbers and watermelon.

    The 12-year-old Yampil was named for a village in the Donetsk region where he was one of the few survivors found by Ukrainian troops in the remains of a bombed-out private zoo.

    Yampil, who had previously been called Borya, was discovered by soldiers who recaptured the devastated city of Lyman during the Kharkiv counteroffensive in the fall of 2022, said Yegor Yakovlev of Save Wild, who was among the first of many people who led the bear to a new life.

    What followed was an odyssey that your average bear rarely makes, as he was moved to Kyiv for veterinary care and rehab, then shipped to a zoo in Poland, then to an animal rescue in Belgium, where he spent the past seven months, before landing in the United Kingdom.

    Brian Curran, owner of Five Sisters Zoo in West Calder, Scotland, said his heart broke when he learned of the plight of the threatened Asiatic black bear.

    The bear was trained in the past two weeks to move from his enclosure to the crate that would transport him across Belgium to Calais, France, then across the English Channel on a ferry to Scotland.


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