Diver fights for life after being strangled by octopus during underwater incident in eastern Russia

A diver has had a near-death encounter with an octopus who decided to fight back after being poked with a stick.

Occurring in the ocean near Primorsky Krai in eastern Russia, the diver could be seen approaching an octopus that was hiding in a rock on the ocean floor.

On approach, the diver used a stick to poke to octopus, forcing it out of its hiding spot, then attempted to grab the ocean creature.

However, it appears the diver may have picked the wrong octopus to try and catch, as a near-fatal struggle broke out.

The eight-limbed sea creature started to shoot black ink, but seemingly realising it could not escape, began latching onto the diver.

The diver attempted to pull the creature off his hand, however the octopus instead latched on harder and made its way from the man’s hand to his face.

Appearing alarmed, the diver frantically swum towards the surface.

As he made it to the surface, the diver desperately attempted to catch his breath as the octopus begun to cover his torso and put a tentacle into the man’s mouth.

The man’s struggle continued for more than a minute before he was able to finally free himself from the octopus’ grasp.

The octopus has been identified online as having non-lethal venom.

It’s not known what happened to the octopus which is being held in the diver’s fist as the video ends.