Putin’s War Leading Directly to More Fires in Ukraine and Indirectly to More in Russia, Lanshina Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 17 – Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine is leading directly to more fires in Ukraine as the exchange of fire sets forests ablaze and prevents these conflagrations from being extinguished and indirectly to more in Russia itself because the Kremlin leader has cut back the country’s fire-fighting capability in order to fund his aggression, Tatyana Lanshina says.
    The independent Russian environmental activist says that global warming has increased the risks of fires in many countries; but while most of them have increased funding for firefighting, Russia has done just the reverse. As a result, this year is likely to set a new record as far as forest fires are concerned (theins.ru/obshestvo/279556).
    The problems Russia is facing have been growing with each year of Putin’s aggression, something his government has tried to obscure by suggesting that the Ukrainians are setting these fires, a claim for which there is no evidence (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/05/putins-optimization-program-means.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/05/regional-officials-reported-to-be.html).
    Much less attention has been given to forest fires in Ukraine for which Moscow, not Kyiv bears responsibility, given that its forces fire into forests and prevent Ukrainian fire fighters from putting the flames out (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/07/russian-armys-actions-in-ukraine.html).
    Lanshina’s article in The Insider represents a rare and extremely valuable attempt to bring together what is known about forest fires in both country and to document that in Ukraine as in Russia, it is Moscow’s actions rather than those of any other actor or development that is to blame for this growing tragedy.