March 25, 2026

Novosibirsk Cows Burned Alive - Takie Dela

During a mass slaughter of livestock in the Novosibirsk region, animals were not anesthetized or given painkillers before being killed, and were in fact burned alive. This is stated in an investigation by "Takie Dela." During the destruction of livestock, the drugs "Ditilin" and "Adilin" - curare-like muscle relaxants - were used. They cause instant paralysis of the muscles but do not shut down brain activity. The animals remained fully conscious, experiencing suffocation and panic, but could not move, journalists write, citing several sources and experts. "Imagine: you cannot inhale or exhale, but you are fully conscious because your brain is working - and in this state of horror, you die," said Alexey Ermakov, director of the Institute of Living Systems at DSTU. There are currently no drugs for humane euthanasia of infected animals in Russia. Furthermore, during the mass slaughter of livestock, authorities used a small dose of curare-like drugs - temporarily paralyzing the animals but not killing them. "This cannot be called euthanasia, because it is a voluntary way of leaving life, and now there is a mass murder. I am standing here and crying. They called me from there and asked: 'Why do they scream when they are being burned?'" said veterinarian-epizootologist Svetlana Shchepyotkina to journalists. World methodological recommendations for humane euthanasia, adopted in the USA and the CIS, state that the use of curare-like drugs for killing animals is "categorically prohibited."