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In a recent appearance on Russia’s state-run television, Russian political scientist Sergey Mikheyev suggested that the country’s “empire” should grow to encompass three American states.

“I want the Russian empire with Alaska, Hawaii, California, Finland, and Poland,” he said, as translated by Gerashchenko for the clip he shared. “Although Poland and Finland are so stinky, I’m not sure, to be honest. We’ll clean them.”

  • tal@lemmy.today
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    7 months ago

    “I want the Russian empire with Alaska, Hawaii, California, Finland, and Poland,” he said, as translated by Gerashchenko for the clip he shared. “Although Poland and Finland are so stinky, I’m not sure, to be honest. We’ll clean them.”

    https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/08/20/trump-blames-california-for-wildfires-tells-state-you-gotta-clean-your-floors-1311059

    OAKLAND — President Donald Trump on Thursday blamed California for its raging wildfires and threatened to withhold federal money, reprising his attacks from previous rounds of catastrophic blazes.

    “I see again the forest fires are starting,” he said at a rally in swing-state Pennsylvania. “They’re starting again in California. I said, you gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests — there are many, many years of leaves and broken trees and they’re like, like, so flammable, you touch them and it goes up.”

    He was invoking his famous comments from 2018, when he visited the remnants of Paradise, a California town that suffered the state’s deadliest and most destructive fire. Back then, he pointed to Finland, claiming its leader said the European “forest nation” had “spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things. And they don’t have any problem.”

    Finnish President Sauli Niinistö later said he told Trump that Finland takes care of its forests but did not say anything about raking, according to CNN.

    I’m getting some decidedly conflicting messages here on the relative cleanliness of California and Finland.

    • NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth
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      7 months ago

      To be fair, the Cheeto is not wrong.

      Forest fires naturally experienced small burns that take care of all of that and through human action of stopping that it is allowed a lot to build up and that is a huge cause of why there are so many giant wildfires right now

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Cheetoh is mixing two different messages:

        • yes, forests need care to prevent catastrophic fires, but that involves thing like guided logging, and letting the small fires go
        • yes, people need to rake and clear underbrush to make it tougher for the fire to spread on their property and up to their house

        However there’s only so much these can help when you’re building in high fire risk areas

      • vividspecter@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        And the effects of climate change making forest fires in general much more severe and more difficult to control.