51�Թ�

A year later it was moved from a facility owned by a dolphinarium in St Petersburg to the military programme in the Russian Arctic, where his trainers and vets remained in contact.

"We want them to stay with us for as long as possible," the dolphinarium's manager Iulian Calin said.

Last year, the dolphinarium took in four dolphins and three sea lions alongside their trainers and doctors fleeing the shelling in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

In Kharkiv, the local dolphinarium sought to move their dolphins and sea lions as soon as the shelling started last February.

The Constanta dolphinarium, part of a wider natural science museum and research complex, has been home to female dolphins Ni Ni and Chen Chen since 2010.