Even as hundreds of Indian students remain stuck in Ukraine awaiting evacuation, an Indian doctor there is facing a unique conundrum. Kumar, an orthopaedic doctor who goes by the name Jaguar Kumar on social media, is holed up in a bunker under his house near Donbas in south-eastern Ukraine with his pets — a jaguar named Yagwar and a black panther named Sabrina. Kumar, who settled in Ukraine after completing his MBBS degree there, has been regularly documenting his struggles while taking care of the two big cats and procuring food for them amid the war, on his YouTube channel ‘Jaguar Kumar Telugu’, which has over 84,000 subscribers.
Kumar hails from Tanuku town in Andhra Pradesh’s West Godavari district. In recent media interviews conducted before the ongoing war began, Kumar spoke about his love for animals since childhood, and his wish to raise big cats as pets after watching a Chiranjeevi film as a kid. “I’ve been an avid animal lover since childhood. When I saw the movie Lankeswarudu, I was fascinated by Chiranjeevi’s acts with the tiger. I saw the movie many times for both Chiranjeevi and the tiger,” he had said in one interview.
Kumar, who was once an aspiring actor, moved to Ukraine to pursue MBBS and continued to work there. After several failed attempts to adopt a lion cub or a Bengal tiger cub, he said he was informed by a local zoo about two years ago that they had a jaguar in poor health. After the animal was treated and its health restored, Kumar said he obtained necessary permissions and brought him home. More recently, he brought home Sabrina, a black panther. Speaking about the expenses and difficulties of raising them, he said that he began making YouTube videos hoping for supplementary income to take care of his pets.
In his videos, Kumar is seen documenting the difficulties of surviving the ongoing war with a jaguar and a panther for pets, and his struggles to procure sufficient food for them. Responding to suggestions from viewers that he release them in the wild, Kumar has said that he was afraid they would end up being poached. He said that leaving them at a zoo is also a difficult option as it would require him to travel 1,200 km through the war-torn country.
Days before the war began, Kumar said in a video, “Until my last moment I will strive to protect them (Yagwar and Sabrina). There is no way I will leave the kids behind. We just have to survive at any cost.”
Speaking to The New Indian Express, he said he hoped that the Indian government would allow him to bring home his pets, which also include three dogs. Several Indian citizens returning from Ukraine have brought along their pets, mainly cats and dogs.