At least six people have been killed in bear attacks in Russia’s vast Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk in one month, prosecutors said Wednesday, while an official in a neighboring region reported that the bears had put a town “under siege.” Prosecutors said they opened an investigation into criminal negligence, accusing local officials of failing to control the number of bears. Russia’s brown bear population has more than doubled since 1990, from around 130,000 to nearly 308,000 in 2026, according to Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources. While the number of bear attacks across Russia has remained constant at around 20 to 30 per year, according to the ministry, local media and officials have expressed alarm at the rising numbers. At least 14 people have been killed in bear attacks across Russia since the beginning of the year, according to a tally by The Moscow Times. Despite numerous warnings, local officials “did not take measures to regulate the population of predators or prevent them from appearing in areas inhabited by people,” the Investigative Committee of the sparsely populated Russian regions of Krasnoyarsk and Khakassia said on its website. The bodies of two pensioners were found mutilated in a forest near the remote town of Podtyosovo earlier this month, followed by the death of a 40-year-old factory worker who was walking in the forest on September 6, according to local media. Earlier this month, two people died while searching for wild berries in a remote forest on the banks of the Lena River, the Moscow Times reported. “One person managed to escape and report the incident,” the regional branch of Russia’s Interior Ministry said, according to the outlet. A bear killed a 39-year-old logger who was guarding machinery in the forest early Wednesday, investigators said. The deputy head of the neighboring Khakassia region, Dmitry Buchenik, said Wednesday that the forest town of Abaza, home to about 10,000 people, was surrounded by bears “on all sides.” “In Abaza it was an alarming night. The taiga city is effectively under siege by bears,” he said. “Some animals were chased away, but three died (one of them was huge),” he added. A brown bear is seen in Kamchatka, Russia, in 1999. Eric CHRETIEN/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images Unverified videos on social media purported to show a bear swimming across a river next to the city, while another showed a group of three bears jumping across a road in front of cars. Russia’s Emergencies Ministry says bears flee in the vast majority of encounters with humans. Earlier this year, authorities said three members of a family, including a child, were injured by a polar bear in a rare attack in far northern Siberia. More from CBS News Go deeper with The Free Press in:
