Three trucks, nine lions, police with guns: how the Odesa big cat rescue unfolded

British army veterans carry a sedated lion to one of the trucks that would bring the nine big cats out of Ukraine to safety in Romania, from where it hoped they will find a permanent home in the US. Photograph: Nathan Lainé/Magnus News

The lion rescuers met at midnight in the carpark of a hotel in the Romanian city of Suceava, 50km from the Ukraine border.

“It sounds very ominous,” says Lionel de Lange, a South African wildlife park owner who led the operation. “But it was really the first time the 13 of us had ever met and we got on the road. Five minutes later our first vehicle broke down.”