The Russian government has offered to send a German shepherd puppy to France "in solidarity" after bomb-sniffing malinois was killed Wednesday.
The Russian government has offered to send France a puppy in a show of solidarity after a bomb-sniffing dog was killed during a raid north of Paris on Wednesday.
Russia's interior minister said he will send a German shepherd puppy to the French police in honor of 7-year-old Diesel, a malinois French authorities say was killed by a terrorist at some point during their hours-long seige in Saint-Denis, AP reports.
Gen. Vladimir Kolokoltsevs said in a statement late on Friday that the new puppy, named Dobrynya after a Russian fairy-tale knight, "could replace Diesel."
Read: Bomb-Sniffing Dog Killed as Police Raid Paris Suburb in Search of Attack Mastermind
Dobrynya is two months old and lives at a police dog center in the Moscow region, according to local reports.
Before heading to France, Dobrynya must undergo a veterinary evalution and quarantine.
The puppy appeared on Russian state television on Saturday and a photo of him appeared on a the Russian Ministry of the Interior's Facebook page.
Canines like Diesel are routinely used to sniff out explosives, who was the same breed as the one that accompanied the Navy SEALs who killed Osama bin Laden.
"It's a little like losing one our colleagues," the Telegraph reports one French police handler as saying.
In a Wednesday morning Facebook post, the Police Nationale applauded the work done by dogs like Diesel as "essential in the missions of the operators of the raid."
Five police officers were lightly injured in the raid.
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