This driver will not be facing criminal charges for having a brown bear in the back of his car - because the animal was apparently wearing a seatbelt.



The astonishing images were caught on camera in Yekaterinburg, Russia, earlier this month.

Stunned motorists couldn’t believe their eyes when they spotted the bear lounging in the rear of the Volga.



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They even saw it playfully sticking its head out of the window.



Coincidentally, Moscow’s Filatov Circus was in town at the time of the incident. But boss Julia Filatova insisted that the bear had nothing to do with them.

And she revealed that the beast inside the car was “a young animal” and so that is why it was probably deemed safe to travel.

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“Our bears are much bigger. Normally little bears are kind and friendly,” she is reported as saying.

“If it was more than a year old it wouldn’t have fit in such a car and certainly wouldn’t have gone inside happily,” she added.

Yekaterinburg Zoo also denied any knowledge about the animal.

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Local police said it was not illegal to transport bears in this way - as long as they wore a seatbelt, in accordance to the Russian road traffic laws.

They did not specify whether they had spoken with the driver or how they had verified that the bear was wearing a seatbelt.

But officers confirmed they would not be taking any legal action against the driver.

(Pictures credited to CEN)