The Russian Air Force on Jan. 1 bombed a Ukrainian wildlife shelter used as an evacuation haven for zoo animals from other cities under attack by the Kremlin – wounding big cats, killing raptors and breaching the Bengal tiger enclosure.
Officials in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, said the Russian air strike hit the Feldman Ecopark, located in the nearby village of Lisne. In peacetime, the park is an outdoor recreation site for camping, picnicking and wildlife viewing.
“According to the most recent information, an enemy KAB [Guided Aerial Bomb] hit the ground in the territory of an eco-park in the suburbs. A 40-year-old woman was left with head injuries and hospitalized with an explosive injury,” said Oleh Syniehubov, Kharkiv region governor, writing on Telegram.
The KAB is a long-range glide bomb widely used by the Russian Air Force because it can be dropped from outside the range of most Ukrainian air defenses. It flies to its target on a pair of glide wings.
Park founder Oleksandr Feldman told Suspilne Kharkiv that the injured woman is a volunteer who works at the zoo. At least two lions were injured and enclosures for tropical birds and raptors were demolished in the strike, he said.
Video and photos from the scene showed a bomb crater consistent with the detonation of a 250-kilogram air-dropped bomb and strikes by anti-personnel fragmentation shrapnel up to 100 meters from the crater. Three buildings were turned to rubble by the blast and at least five aviaries took damage. One rare bird, a male pheasant, escaped to a nearby forest but staff tracked him down and recovered him, the report said.
Two tigers named Abat and Alba were reportedly uninjured but temporarily set free by the bomb blast. One ran into a three-story building and the other took cover in a demolished aviary. The location of both was known at all times, there was no threat to surrounding homes and businesses, and by evening both tigers had been returned to their enclosure which was barricaded shut with debris and construction materials, Feldman said.
The worst damage was to the bird enclosures since the buildings were kept warm and the birds inside, being tropical, cannot survive outside in Ukrainian winter conditions, Feldman said. A search was in progress for replacment housing, he added.
In peacetime, Feldman’s privately-run park had housed a limited selection of wildlife for public viewing and provided opportunities for camping, boating and picnicking. In wartime, the site became a holding facility for animals evacuated mostly by volunteers from cities across northern and eastern Ukraine. By late 2024, the facility housed more than 5,000 animals and birds, according to an Ecopark statement.
Currently, the park’s location in wooded terrain north of Kharkiv is some 20 kilometers (roughly 12 miles) from the line dividing Russian and Ukrainian forces along the Russo-Ukraine border. The territory of the Feldman Ecopark was overrun by invading Russian forces in February 2022 and liberated in September 2022 as part of a Ukrainian counter-offensive.
Since then, thanks to its close proximity to the Russian border, the site has seen thousands of southbound Russian drones and missiles pass above its occupants’ heads en route to targets in the city of Kharkiv.
In July 2024, a Russian drone strike injured two workers, and in July a Russian drone strike set a stable for ungulates ablaze. In September 2025, short-range Russian first person view (FPV) drones began flying into the park.
In 2025 according to official Ukrainian data, in Kharkiv city alone, at least 41 civilians died as a result of Russian air, missile, artillery rocket and drone strikes. On Friday, one day after the Ecopark was hit, Russian drones struck a home in the village Velykyi Burluk, Kharkiv region, injuring an 84-year-old woman. Seven houses in the village were damaged as well, Syniehubov said in a Friday statement.
Across Ukraine in 2025, the Russian Air Force has, according to Ukrainian army estimates, dropped over 60,000 glide bombs – most weighing between 250 and 500 kilograms, but some weighing as much as three tons, sufficient to level an entire apartment building. Typically between 20-35 Russian bombs, most riding glider wings but a minority falling conventionally, strike Kharkiv’s northern outskirts daily.
Perhaps the most lethal glide bomb strike to hit Kharkiv since Russia’s 2022 invasion occurred on May 25 2024, when a pair of glide bombs struck a construction materials superstore during a crowded Saturday afternoon, with more than 200 people inside. Explosions and fires killed at least 19 and injured at least 54.
Guided by – sometimes primitive – electronics and subject to jamming, Russia’s glide bombs as used against Ukraine are considered area-effect rather than precision-guided weapons.
According to Russian independent news agency Astra, the Russian Air Force accidentally dropped at least 143 aerial bombs on its own territory and Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine during 2025 – mostly in Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine’s Kharkiv region to the north. The accidental drops are commonly blamed on malfunctioning glider bomb kits fitted to bombs, Astra reported.