Special "designer dogs" which have been cloned for sniffing explosives and drugs are being used by police and security services in Russia.

The three Belgian Malinois - each valued at £80,000 - were cloned by a South Korean professor who also aims one day to restore extinct woolly mammoths to the vast and frigid Russian province of Siberia.

They are the first cloned service dogs in Russia and they will be assigned to police and the FSB secret service in Yakutia, the coldest inhabited region in the world.

Before they enter service however the first task for the dogs - gifted to Russia by Dr Hwang Woo Suk - is language retraining as they only understand orders in Korean.

The dogs will be assigned to police and the FSB secret service in Yakutia (
Image:
Barcroft)

The dogs were unveiled to Russian media at the Mammoth Museum in regional capital Yakutsk.

This is the same part of Siberia where the professor is collecting samples from extinct woolly mammoths - preserved for thousands of years in the permafrost - with the aim of bringing the species back to life in their native habitat.

The dogs were officially handed over to the All-Russian Military-Historical Society which will deploy them as needed to law enforcement services.

Museum director Dr Semyon Grigoryev said: "These dogs have been recreated from the cells of the best Korean sniffer dogs, inheriting their unique abilities. They will be the first cloned service dogs in Russia."

They are among 500 cloned puppies from the Sooam Biotech laboratories in Seoul, the world's first animal cloning centre.

They are the first cloned service dogs in Russia (
Image:
Barcroft)

Dr Grigoryev said: "These dogs are very young, in Korea they went though a basic training, so handlers here will decide what best to choose for them depending on their abilities and talents.

"The military-historical society works in co-operation with Russian police and special services, and provides dogs as ordered.

"I know that the society's trainers are usually most keen on explosive sniffers, so I would guess this is the field where the cloned dogs will be used."

The mammoth museum has long been working closely with Dr Hwang and Sooam Biotech "on the much more ambitious project of mammoth cloning," reports The Siberian Times .

However, cloning is seen as controversial by some authorities, who claim it amounts to interference with nature.

Yakutia is a treasure trove of mammoth biological material with remains of the extinct creatures preserved in the ice.

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