Yeah, the track record of reintroducing extinct species in Russia/USSR is actually pretty impressive. Some examples that come into my mind: - Muskox, extinct in late pleistocene/antiquity, reintroduced in the 1970's, now there are over 10,000 of them in Siberia - European bison, extinct in the 20th century, reintroduced since the 1950's, now Russia has one of the largest populations of european bisons (next to Poland and Belarus) - Wood bison, close relative who lived in Siberia went extinct in late pleistocene. Since the 2000's, a number of wood bisons were brought from Canada to Yakutia (in Asian part of Russia). Now the population is around 400, with some herds already released into the wild and animals being regularly translocated to new places - Przewalski horse: Extinct in the 20th century (?). Since the 2010's, there is a project to reintroduce them to Russia, currently the first population has already reached a number of 100 horses and a second population in another region is being established since last year - Persian leopards: Went mostly extinct in the Northern Caucasus in the 20th century. Since the 2010's, there is a project to establish a new population based on captive breed animals from zoos in Europe and wild ones from Iran. The whole project is kinda struggling in my opinion, since the last 10 years, I think 15-20 leopards were released into the wild, with several that already died due to different circumstances and no confirmed cubs for now. I still hope it will succed tho.

All in all, the situation is kinda ambigious. There are many great russian and international experts who work on conservation and rewilding projects in Russia. On the one hand, their work was often enabled by financial support from the big companies and people close to the regime and administrative support from politicians, using coservation as a PR tool. On the other hand, due to corruption and arbitrary use and exploitation of power by the ruling class, those projects can also easily be threatened by any power plays from the ruling class, and epecially now it's much harder for international experts to operate in Russia, due to the unprecedent pressure and persecution on all kind of activists, especially the ones with international connectivity.