A Ukrainian fitness model has come under fire from animal lovers after photos of her tattooed pet Sphynx went viral on social media.

Elena Ivanickaya, a fitness enthusiast and Instagram model, first sparked controversy in 2017, when she announced that she had had her pet hairless cat, Yasha, tattooed, even posting photos of the sedated animal during the procedure. Her decision was labeled as animal cruelty and caused so much outrage that the story eventually made international news headlines. But instead of backing off and let things blow over, Ivanickaya defended her decision and continued to post photos of the tattooed feline on her social media post. Those pics once again went viral recently, and people are once again showering the Ukrainian with criticism.

Photo: Elena Ivanickaya/Instagram

“This cat’s life is better then yours. Maybe it is hell for you, but he feels just fine. He has not been castrated and he never will be, this would be real cruelty,” Elena Ivanickaya hit back at her critics, back in 2017. “I checked with the vet before getting him a tattoo and they were fine with it and a vet was present while they were doing the tattoo, so everything was under control.”

The blonde bombshell that the tattoo gun needle only went 1-2 millimeters into Yasha’s skin and that he did not feel any pain, during or after the procedure. Elena added that the hairless cat started behaving normally immediately after the tattooing procedure, and went on with his normal routine.

However, people weren’t convinced by her rhetoric then, and they certainly don’t feel any differently now that the photos of the tattooed Yasha went viral once again. Animal-loving Instagram users have been flooding Ivanickaya’s comment section with criticism, accusing her of animal cruelty and asking authorities to take action against her.

“This is not ok, delete this and seek professional help. Wow. Someone come save this poor baby,” one woman wrote.

“This is animal abuse,” someone else commented.

“I don’t understand how you can do something like that to your cat when you don’t even have tattoos, did you think that this would give you more followers on the spot. You’re a hypocrite, you deserve to have your cat taken away from you,” an outraged person commented.

Despite the backlash, Elena Ivanickaya seems to have remained unrepentant. She has yet to address the accusations, but the mere fact that she continues to post pictures of the tattooed Sphynx cat, and that she hasn’t taken down a single one of them speaks for itself.

Interestingly, this controversial trend of tattooing pets isn’t new. We first coevered it in 2012, when a Russian tattoo artist had his pet cat tattooed, and again in 2017, when another tattoo artist, also from Russia, tattooed his pet Sphynx and also sparked criticism.