He’s described as quick-tempered but lovable, and when Mur the Siberian tiger – or rather a computer-generated animation of him – joins the long-running children’s television show Goodnight Little Ones, Russian children will have Vladimir Putin to thank if he proves as popular as his puppet co-stars.

The show’s producer, Alexander Mitroshenkov, said on Monday that while a wolf, a monkey, a giraffe or a horse had all been under discussion since the show announced last month that it would introduce a new character to mark its 50th anniversary, the creators settled on a tiger after “our president suggested the idea for the new hero”.

The character was announced by Mitroshenkov at a press conference featuring pictures, a plush toy prototype and a live Siberian, or Amur, tiger cub.

Mur will be from the same magic forest as the show’s other characters, including a piglet, a dog and a hare, but unlike these puppets he will be a computer-generated animation. He will raise the issue of environmental conservation and travel into space during his first year on the programme, the show’s creators said.

It was befitting the image he has cultivated as a macho outdoorsman and animal lover that Putin picked a Siberian tiger. The Russian president is known as a fan of exotic predators, most recently releasing two tigers into the wild in Russia’s far east in May and climbing into a cage to snuggle a snow leopard before the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Putin has also created a foundation for Siberian tigers and increased funding for conservation projects that the Kremlin said have begun to increase endangered tiger and leopard populations.

Before the identity of the new character from the magic forest was announced, Russian and Ukrainian internet users had joked that it might be “Little Padded Jacket,” a reference to the derogatory name for Russian uber-patriots that have loudly supported the rebels in eastern Ukraine.

The popular poet and political satirist Dmitry Bykov predicted the character would either be a tiger or a hedgehog, writing that the spiny creature would “be a symbol of the defensive consciousness” of the Russian government in the face of western sanctions.

After the tiger Mur was announced, several Russian Twitter users noted that his name was the same as the acronym for the Moscow criminal investigation office. “It’s not the tiger Mur, but rather the tiger from MUR. He’ll enforce order,” wrote a popular joke Twitter account created in the name of the trademark “sandy moustache” of Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman.

Beloved by generations of Russian children, Goodnight Little Ones is the longest-running children’s show in the world and has featured virtually the same evening format since it started in 1964. A well-known host converses with some of the show’s puppet characters, after which they typically watch a cartoon – or as of recently a 3D animation – with a humorous or instructive subject.