Russian army ordered to help firefighters battle raging wildfires in Siberia
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered the army to help firefighters battle wildfires in Siberia but environmentalists said the move was unlikely to produce a quick breakthrough.
Environmentalists have dubbed the fires an ecological catastrophe and a petition circulated online by an ecologist from the Siberian city of Tomsk had garnered 824,000 signatures as of Wednesday demanding authorities take tougher action. The defence ministry was sending 10 Ilyushin-76 planes and 10 transport helicopters to the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk equipped with firefighting equipment following the order from the Kremlin, RIA news agency reported.
Regional authorities have said they do not plan to expend resources on fighting the latter as they are mainly in remote, uninhabited areas and therefore not a direct threat to people.
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