Locusts have descended on Stavropol, eating politicians' billboards and farmers' car tires

A swarm of locusts has been devouring politicians' campaign billboards in Stavropol. According to Nikolai Velikdan, a regional state official, the bugs ate the banners of some candidates for local parliament, and now they're chewing on farmers' car tires.

Velikdan tried to calm people living in the area, where some have expressed concerns about the flying insects and a spike in their activity. “This is the Italian locust. It's larvae can be very harmful to grain crops, legumes, and sugar beet crops. But this insect is not dangerous to human beings,” Velikdan said at a press conference.

When journalist persisted with questions about the bugs, Velikdan tried to calm his audience with another argument, saying, “The locusts have already started chewing on the rubber on cars, on the tires. They're eating political candidates' billboards, but farmers aren't uploading photos of it to social networks—they're perfectly calm about the whole thing. In any case, you can spray your gardens, but there's no point in panicking people living in cities.”

According to Velikdan, Stavropol's government spends 30 million rubles (almost half a million dollars) on locust eradication. It's unknown whose billboard was gobbled up by the bugs. It seems Velikdan was right about the absence of photographs on social media. Meduza couldn't find any evidence of a campaign billboard destroyed by locusts.