A safari park lion jumped into a car packed full of tourists - weeks after a woman was attacked at the same site.
The lion - called Filya - looked like it wanted to take the steering wheel and drive and appeared to be quite playful.
It got up close to the tourists in the open sided vehicle - giving cuddles and even licking one woman in the face.
Green-shirted lion whisperer Oleg Zubkov, 50, owner of Taigan Safari Park in Crimea, was on hand.
And the Russian tourists got some amazing selfies with the two-year-old big cat.
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But it is only eight weeks since a woman was attacked by another lion - called Vitya - at the same park.
Olga Solomina, 46, from Kirov, said that the predator “bit through my right arm and used it to drag me - it like a puppet.”
She revealed: “When I got back to my senses, I was already in the hands of the park’s staff who were helping me.
“When it happened, right at the moment of the incident, I actually said goodbye to my life.
“I thought I was to be torn apart.
“Oleg Zubkov was there helping me to bandage the wound.
“It was bleeding.
“Then he rushed me to the park’s medical point.”
Zubkov refuses to halt his get-close-to-lions policy at the park in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014.
Olga had drunk alcohol before going into the big cat enclosure, he said.
“It was my mistake not to realise that she has had cognac before entering- possibly because she was scared.
“She came inside and started ruffling the lions’s mane.
“Vitya the lion came close to her and pulled her away by her arm.
“She wasn’t pulled forcefully into the park.
“She knew this was a dangerous site.
“She was given health and safety instructions and entered voluntarily.
“I’m glad to say days after the incident Olga was feeling well.
“Still, I am ready to answer for my park before court.”
The bitten and shaken tourist had threatened court action over the incident, but details have not been reported.
Zubkov has a remarkable record in taming big cats and insists that tourists are safe if they follow his advice.
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