By Jekaterina Golubkova
May 27 (Reuters) - Russia has handed Kazakhstan four Amur tigers, two of them cubs, to help the country restore its numbers of the animals, President Vladimir Putin said in an article issued ahead of his visit to the Central Asian nation this week.
Rich in energy resources and critical minerals, Kazakhstan shares a border with Russia and is a close ally of Moscow in a region where China and the United States are also expanding their influence.
The four animals captured in Russia's far eastern region of Khabarovsk were flown to Kazakhstan, Putin said on the Kremlin's website on Tuesday, and are soon to be released into the wild.
Putin is no stranger to using animals to advance diplomatic efforts.
In 2022, Russia sent 30 grey thoroughbred horses to North Korea, as the nations have boosted ties since Ukraine's invasion that year. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is a keen horseman.
Kazakhstan, which is trying to restore the tiger population in Central Asia, sees the Amur tiger as a close relative of the extinct Caspian tiger. The Russian gesture boosts the country's tally of the animals previously sent by the Netherlands.
On his visit, Putin will oversee the signing of a deal for a nuclear power project in Kazakhstan, which has no nuclear power generation now, and will discuss efforts to boost the transit of Russian oil to China through the country, the Kremlin has said.
(Reporting by Jekaterīna Golubkova in Tokyo; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
