BELGRADE, Aug 20 (Reuters) – Serbia has turned to Russia for help in fighting wildfires because of a lack of available planes from the European Union, its interior ministry said.<\/p>\n
A Russian \u200cEmergencies Ministry IL-76P firefighting plane landed in the southern city of Nis on Wednesday evening \u200cand was deployed on Thursday to tackle a wildfire in the Deliblatska Pescara natural protected reserve that has raged for weeks.<\/p>\n
Serbia is \u200bnot a member of the EU but has access to emergency EU help under the bloc’s Civil Protection Mechanism. This summer, Belgrade sent a firefighting helicopter and emergency response team to help Spain combat wildfires under that mechanism, but wildfires across Europe have sapped EU resources.<\/p>\n
“Considering that there are no firefighting aircraft of this capacity \u200cavailable within the EU…the arriving Russian \u2060aircraft will significantly strengthen our capacities in fighting the fires,” Luka Causic, head of the Interior Ministry’s Department for Emergency Situations, said late on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
A European Commission spokesperson \u2060said Serbia had not “up till now” activated the EU Civil Protection Mechanism and that the bloc would mobilise its assistance in line with Belgrade’s needs on the ground.<\/p>\n
“We can also confirm that Europe is ready to support the \u200bcountry \u200bwith a fleet fitting the actual situation,” the spokesperson \u200btold Reuters.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson also reiterated that there can \u200cbe no “business as usual” with Russia as long as it continues to wage its “unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression on European soil in Ukraine”.<\/p>\n
Russian planes are forbidden from flying over EU airspace under sanctions imposed over its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but humanitarian aid is exempt.<\/p>\n
On its way to Serbia, the Russian plane crossed the airspace of EU and NATO member Bulgaria following a request from Belgrade, the BTA news \u200cagency reported, citing a statement by Bulgaria’s Ministry of Transport \u200band Communications.<\/p>\n
The plane’s arrival is another sign of Serbia’s balancing act \u200bbetween Russia, with which it has historical \u200bties, and the EU, which it hopes to join. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited \u200cSerbia this month, but Belgrade has not joined \u200bsanctions against Moscow over \u200bthe war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
“We came here to work. It is not the first time; we feel like at home here,” pilot Andrei Vidlov told state RTS news on Wednesday after he landed \u200bthe plane.<\/p>\n
Serbian media said the aircraft \u200cwas sent on instructions from Russian President Vladimir Putin, following Serbia’s request for assistance. Reuters \u200bcould not immediately confirm this.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic and Ivana Sekularac; Additional reporting by Charlotte \u200bVan Campenhout; Editing by Timothy Heritage and Gareth Jones)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BELGRADE, Aug 20 (Reuters) – Serbia has turned to Russia for help in fighting wildfires because of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8963,39,40,53881,50919,60036,60034,16,60035,60037,496],"class_list":["post-120191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-belgrade","tag-eu","tag-european-union","tag-fighting-wildfires","tag-firefighting-aircraft","tag-firefighting-helicopter","tag-plane-landed","tag-russia","tag-russian-emergencies-ministry","tag-russian-planes","tag-serbia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}