I can't believe in a modern day and age that people still think that this is ok, or that people wouldn't care. I could see it slipping by in rural Russia, but certainly modern society has progressed to the point where pets have value as pets, and also value as living creatures?

Good heads-up on your part to draw attention to this and try to gain ownership of the animals. At the least, I'm going to drop a casual email as a random third party to the email address you provided to at least inquire about the situation, and imply that they certainly better not be doing what I hear they're doing. Who knows, enough of those, and they they may realize they're not making a good decision here.