According to a report by Reuters on August 20th, the Serbian Interior Ministry stated that due to the lack of available firefighting aircraft in the EU, Serbia has turned to Russia for assistance in extinguishing wildfires.
According to reports from the Russian media such as Tass, following instructions from Russian President Putin, a Russian Emergency Situations Ministry Il-76P firefighting aircraft landed in the southern city of Nis on Wednesday evening. On Thursday, it was sent to the Deliblatska Pescara nature reserve to extinguish a wildfire that had been burning for several weeks.
According to a statement from the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry's press department, "Following instructions from Russian President Vladimir Putin, an Il-76 aircraft carrying personnel and a team from the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry has been dispatched to Serbia to extinguish wildfires. The request for assistance came directly from Serbia: due to the rapid deterioration of the fire situation and its threat to densely populated areas, our partner requested assistance from Russia."
According to Reuters, Serbia is currently a candidate country for EU membership but does not have official membership. However, it can receive emergency assistance through the EU civil protection mechanism. This summer, Belgrade used this mechanism to send a fire helicopter and emergency response teams to Spain to assist in fighting wildfires.
On Wednesday evening, Luca Cosic, head of the Serbian Ministry of Interior's emergency management department, revealed that wildfires across Europe have depleted EU emergency resources. He said, "Considering that there are no fire aircraft of this scale available within the EU... the arrival of Russian aircraft will greatly enhance our firefighting capabilities."
The report also mentioned that due to EU sanctions against Russia, Russian aircraft are prohibited from flying over European airspace, but humanitarian aid is exempted. According to a statement by the country's Ministry of Transport and Communications, Russian aircraft flew over Bulgarian airspace at the request of Belgrade on their way to Serbia.
