Russia's President Vladimir Putin makes comments on the country's bilateral relations with Georgia as he attends the Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit (GMIS) in Yekaterinburg, Russia July 9, 2019. Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via REUTERS

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin questioned on Tuesday the use of wind power, saying wind turbines were harmful to birds and worms.

Russia, a world-leading producer of fossil fuel, is lagging other countries in its development of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind-powered energy.

Wind power is rarely used in the country to generate electricity. Enel Russia ENRU.MM pledged 90 million euros to build a power generation facility by 2024 with a capacity of 71 megawatts.

“Wind-powered generation is good, but are birds being taken into account in this case? How many birds are dying?” Putin said at a televised conference on industry in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

“They (wind turbines) shake, causing worms to come out of the soil. This is not a joke,” he said.

Putin added that people would not like to live on a planet dotted with “rows of wind-powered generators and covered by several layers of solar panels”.