From the first article:
>we mapped Illumina raw sequences from a pool of four wildcat individuals [two European wildcats (F. s. silvestris) and two Eastern wildcats (F. s. lybica)].
And the second article talks about the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx). It looks like they are very different species (same genus in the first, but only same family in the second). I do not really know how cat classification works, so maybe I miss some basic knowledge of the Felidae?
Technologically, dogs and wolves are the same species, but we can't let dogs replace the niche that was occupied by wolves.
The article discusses the lynx, but cites the protected status of the European wildcat. Search for "Felis silvestris" in the article. (It's hard to find sources in English for Polish practices, so I'm relying on English sources citing those sources.)
Unlike cats, domestic dogs have been bred for specific tasks, so they do have enough differentiation that they couldn't fill each others' niches. It's crazy that a chihuahua is more closely related to a gray wolf than the gray wolf is to other wolves. Wolves themselves are so close to coyotes that they can interbreed. We could probably breed dogs to match any specific wolf niche, but chances are there's already wolves somewhere that are close enough.
Cats breeds, on the other hand, are rarely more than a set of superficial features.
Thank you!