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Moscow: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was praised by Russian media on Sunday for saving a television crew from an attack by a Siberian tiger in the wilds of the Far East.
Putin apparently saved the crew while on a trip to a national park to see how researchers monitor the tigers in the wild.
Just as Putin was arriving with a group of wildlife specialists to see a trapped Amur tiger, it escaped and ran towards a nearby camera crew, the country's main television station said. Putin quickly shot the beast and sedated it with a tranquiliser gun.
A presenter on Rossiya television said, "Vladimir Putin not only managed to see the giant predator up close but also saved our television crew too."
The 55-year-old former KGB spy was shown striding through the forest in camouflage and desert boots before grappling with the feline foe.
He helped measure the Amur tiger's incisors before placing a satellite transmitter around the neck of the beast.
The Amur tiger, the world's biggest wild cat, has recently pounced back from the brink of extinction to hit its highest population level for at least 100 years, the WWF said last year.
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