North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s decision to send troops to join Russia in support of its war against Ukraine has led experts to speculate as to what Russian President Vladimir V. Putin might send him in return.

Mr. Kim’s regime, squeezed by international sanctions, needs many things: hard currency, oil, expertise on developing advanced weapons. It probably does not need bears.

Yet Russian state media reported that Russia was sending more than 70 animals to North Korea, among them two brown bears, two domestic yaks, and an African lion. The animals — along with 40 mandarin ducks, 25 pheasants of various species, and five white cockatoos — are being transferred from the Moscow Zoo to the Pyongyang Central Zoo, according to a report Tuesday from TASS, a Russian news agency.

The Russian Natural Resources and Environment ministry called the gesture “Vladimir Putin’s gift to the Korean people,” according to the news agency.

That gift is the latest sign of the tightening bond between the two nations, an alliance that has become increasingly visible over the past few months. In June, they revived a Cold War-era mutual defense pledge and, according to the Pentagon, more than 10,000 North Korean troops are in Russia in the Kursk region, where intense fighting against Ukrainian forces has been taking place since August.

Under Kim Jong-un’s rule, the humanitarian crisis in North Korea has deepened in the past decade after the expansion of the country’s military arsenal led to stricter international sanctions. North Korea also suffered badly from the Covid-19 pandemic and flooding over the past few years, leaving it in dire need of money as well as basic goods.