YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, August 19. /TASS/. Police in the Sakhalin region, Russia’s Far East, have launched an investigation after a video of a brown bear overrun by an off-road vehicle was published online, a police spokesman said on Wednesday.

"Forest rangers filed a complaint after seeing a video of unknown men abusing a bear on Iturup (one of the Kuril Islands," the spokesman said adding that police were working to identify the bear abusers.

The video taken by a smartphone features the three-year old bear whose paw stuck under the wheel of a Mitsubishi Pajero. While the animal was trying to set himself free, men from another car who were making the footage said they had been chasing the bear and overran him for eight times.

One of the men proposed stabbing the bear but the animal managed to get free after tearing the Pajero tire.