MOSCOW — Russian bears, according to the Kremlin, “aren’t idiots,” so they never attack President Vladimir V. Putin when he takes to the wilderness for some relaxation. But ordinary folk, a Russian bear handler discovered this week when he was mauled during a circus performance, do not share the president’s aura of intimidating invincibility.

The handler, thrown to the ground and jumped on by a 660-pound brown bear, escaped the mauling without serious injury, but only after a colleague kicked the muzzled animal and prodded it with an electric stun gun.

The bear, the star of the Anshlag traveling circus from the city of Voronezh, attacked the trainer on Wednesday after being ordered to push a wheelbarrow across the ring while walking upright, an act billed as “Clubfoot and the Garden Wheelbarrow.”

Children and their parents, seated just yards away without any barriers to protect them from the animal, shrieked in horror as the attack unfolded.