Millions of locusts have swept across southern Russia, covering roads, blotting out parts of the sky and devouring stretches of valuable farmland.
The vast, fast-moving swarm has hit the Kizlyar district in the Republic of Dagestan, where clouds of insects have sharply cut visibility and made travel hazardous for drivers.
Video from the area shows locusts thick in the air and clustering around vehicles as motorists try to push through scenes many described as a biblical-style invasion.
Astonished onlookers watched the sky fill with insects, with some likening the unsettling spectacle to the ten plagues sent against Egypt in the biblical Book of Exodus.
‘Looks like one of the 10 plagues,’ one X user wrote.
‘It’s all gone Biblical, maaannn…’ another posted, while a third issued a blunt assessment: ‘Biblical.’
Another user drew on Moses’ warning to the Egyptian pharaoh before the plagues, writing: ‘Let my people go.’
The voracious insects are now spreading across farmland, putting crops at risk as officials work to bring the growing locust emergency under control.
Footage from the region shows locusts filling the air and surrounding vehicles as drivers attempt to navigate through the biblical invasion
The Bible recounts that God sent ten plagues upon Egypt to persuade Pharaoh to free the Israelites from slavery.
The first plague turned the Nile to blood, killing fish and poisoning the water, said to have occurred when Moses struck the Nile with his staff.
Following the first plague, Egypt was struck by swarms of frogs, lice or gnats, and flies, along with deadly livestock disease and painful boils.
A severe hailstorm, locust swarms, three days of thick darkness, and finally the death of every firstborn son forced Pharaoh to release the Israelites.
Locusts are usually solitary insects, but their behavior can change dramatically when favorable breeding conditions cause their numbers to surge.
As the insects become increasingly crowded, they enter what scientists call a gregarious phase, transforming from individuals into a single, highly mobile swarm.
Their appearance, physiology and habits can also change during the process, giving them a greater ability to travel long distances and invade new territory.
Hatching, mating and egg-laying can become synchronized, allowing vast numbers of the insects to emerge and move together.
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The ravenous insects are also sweeping across agricultural land, threatening crops as authorities race to contain the escalating emergency
The result can be an enormous airborne mass capable of rapidly stripping vegetation and overwhelming efforts to contain it.
According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, swarming locusts can feed on leaves, flowers, fruit, seeds, stems and bark, placing crops and grazing land at risk.
The insects do not attack humans or animals and are not known to carry diseases harmful to people, but their sheer numbers can create dangerous conditions when they descend on roads and populated areas.
Dense swarms can also travel with the wind during daylight hours, making their movement difficult to predict and allowing an infestation to spread beyond the area where it first emerged.
Locusts are common and periodically cause major agricultural crises in southern regions of Russia, where hot, dry climates and vast farmland create ideal breeding conditions for massive swarms.
Officials have deployed aircraft and ground-based sprayers in a desperate attempt to halt the swarm and limit the destruction.
However, efforts to stop the invasion have been complicated by the protected nature reserves where the locusts originate.
Chemical treatments are prohibited inside those areas, allowing the insects to move freely beyond the reach of agricultural authorities.
Officials can only begin spraying after the swarms leave the reserves and descend on farmland, by which point crops are already directly in their path.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Food of the Republic of Dagestan said both aerial and ground operations were being used against the invasion.
However, authorities acknowledged that fields would remain vulnerable for as long as the swarms continued emerging from protected land where pesticides cannot be deployed.
Warning signs of the impending invasion were detected months earlier.
During inspections in May, officials discovered the first locusts hatching across northern Dagestan.
Sharip Sharipov, the republic’s first deputy minister of agriculture and food, subsequently urged landowners and agricultural managers to take every available measure within their territories to contain the insects’ spread.
Despite those early warnings, the swarm has now exploded across the district, leaving officials battling the invasion from the air and ground as it advances over roads and farmland.
