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Forest fires provoke war panic in Siberia.
The Civil Guard ties “Ukrainian saboteurs” to trees and rumors spread that Ukrainians in 70 cars are setting fire to the forests.
– The driver and passengers mocked the firefighters, then they set fire to the forest from their pick-up, writes Igor Petrovskij.
In the last 20 years, Russia has suffered more forest fires than any other country in the world. 530,000 square kilometers of forest have burned up, more than the whole of Sweden.
In early May, 300 out of a total of 400 homes in the Siberian village of Juldus burned down and 21 people died in the area.
– Our village burned down. We have no homes left and no assets. We are standing in the street. I have no words left. Please help us, says Anisa, one of the victims, in a video.
The Ural Mountains village of Sosva was also hit hard in May, when 124 homes burned down and two residents died. Just today, June 2, there are 57 forest fires in Russia, on an area of 9,777 hectares, about 100 square kilometers, according to the authority Avialesochrana.
An important reason for the many Russian forest fires is global warming. But the local people in the affected areas of Siberia do not think so. Despite living 250 miles or more from the war front in Ukraine, rumors spread that Ukrainian saboteurs are going around setting fire to the forests.
About 70 percent of residents in the hard-hit Sverdlovsk region of the Ural Mountains believe that Ukrainian saboteurs are behind the forest fires, despite local authorities denying this, says political scientist Dmitry Mikhailitchenko to the newspaper Spektr.
On May 9, a man who was in the forest outside the city of Tyumen was attacked by men on motorcycles. They claimed that “the villain tried to set fire to the forest” and tied him to a tree while filming. Later it turned out that he was completely innocent.
But on Vkontakte – Russian Facebook – the video and pictures of the man were spread with claims that he was part of a “brigade of saboteurs” who caused “the death of 21 people”. The comment fields were filled with calls to execute him on the spot or set him on fire.
When the exiled Russian newspaper Spektr sent a reporter to the town of Rezj in the Ural Mountains, several volunteers helping to put out forest fires claimed that Ukrainians were behind it:
– We think they are saboteurs. The authorities deny it and we have been banned from talking about saboteurs, I don’t know why. Power has its own interests. But we have our ideas about who is doing this, said a volunteer to Spektr.
In another city of the Sverdlosk region, Irbit, on May 7, Vkontakte photos were published of a gray pickup truck allegedly observed at a forest fire.
– Let us know if you have information about the pickup, and we will forward the information to the police, it was called on the Vkontakte account Podslusjano Sjou Irbit.
The next day, rumors spread in the town of Ivdel, 50 miles to the north, that Ukrainian saboteurs were driving around the Sverdlovsk area in 70 cars and setting fire to the forests with flares. Under the Vkontakte post, a picture of a pickup truck and some men was published:
– Eyewitnesses state that the driver and passengers mocked the firefighters, then set fire to the forest sitting in their pick-up, wrote Igor Petrovsky.
The magazine It’s my city, which is published in Yekaterinburg, also says that rumors are spreading about Ukrainian saboteurs:
– I think saboteurs are involved. Around our town, fires broke out from three directions at the same time. Maybe it is happening because of the “special military operation”, to incite us Russians, says a resident of the city of Asbest to the newspaper.