Vladimir Putin at a meeting on wildfires said that Russia has no shortage of funds to respond to emergencies.

“I want to note and emphasize that we have all the necessary means, forces and resources to respond to such emergencies. There are no problems here,” he said.

According to him, the difficulties in extinguishing forest fires in Russia are associated solely with the "organization of work." At the same time, the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia, Alexander Kurenkov, at the same meeting, said that firefighters do not have enough tracked off-road vehicles, which "show their high efficiency in fighting forest fires."

Putin says there are no problems, but the current situation with forest fires in Russia indicates the opposite. Their area has reached 3 million hectares, which is comparable to the area of ​​Belgium. Smog from fires even reaches Moscow. In mid-May, the Ministry of Emergency Situations reported that since the end of April, 16 people have died due to forest fires in Russia.