The World’s Biggest Fires May Reach Moscow Thanks to Putin
Aug 13, 2021 0:54:53 GMT -5
Post by OmegaMan on Aug 13, 2021 0:54:53 GMT -5
The World’s Biggest Fires May Reach Moscow Thanks to Vladimir Putin
August 12, 2021
MOSCOW—Russia is on fire.
Massive wildfires are wiping out entire Siberian villages, killing people, emitting dangerous smoke, and destroying woods and national parks across over 5 million hectares.
The fires, which started in May in Yakutia, are now larger than all wildfires around the planet combined, according to Greenpeace. There is no official death toll yet, but at least five people have died so far.
For months, Russian authorities have been saying that the situation was under control. Finally, on Thursday, the minister of Emergency Situations, Yevgeny Zinichev, traveled to the epicenter of the disaster in Yakutia and concluded: the fires will reach Moscow, if nobody stops it.
There are more than 3,000 miles between Moscow and Yakutia, a republic four times bigger than France located in north-eastern Siberia. It is one of the coldest places on the planet in winter time. But this summer has been unusually hot, with unprecedented droughts and strong winds fueling the disaster.
On Wednesday, a local tractor driver died fighting the fire in Yakutia, which has been burning for weeks. Many locals blame the Kremlin for not doing enough to help the burning north. “Russia is a huge power. Every year it demonstrates its military power but cannot put out the fires. Or does it not want to?,” a prominent Yakutia politician, Sardana Avksentyeva, wrote in a Thursday Instagram post.
When Avksentyeva started posting photographs of wildfires on June 8, she was convinced that the special forces of the emergency ministry, known as MCHS, would handle the problem. But by Aug. 1, houses were still burning and animals were still dying as 163 fires raged around the republic.
“It seems the authorities are simply waiting for august rains to put down the fires. MCHS, are you alive?” she wrote on Instagram. “All our pleas to announce the emergency situation were left unanswered.”
Meanwhile, Moscow has been focused on upcoming parliament elections—and on persecuting the opposition. Yakutia had to fight the fires using only its own local budget. “This is a lesson to all the other Russian regions: do not wait for the center’s help, count only on yourself,”
The leader of Greenpeace Russia’s firefighting team, Grigory Kuksin, says that the government is to be blamed for the lack of funding to manage the disaster.
“Russia spends about 30 billion rubles on preventing fires and training regional forest firefighting teams, but the budget should be at least three times bigger,” Kuksin told The Daily Beast on Thursday.
Continued at link
August 12, 2021
MOSCOW—Russia is on fire.
Massive wildfires are wiping out entire Siberian villages, killing people, emitting dangerous smoke, and destroying woods and national parks across over 5 million hectares.
The fires, which started in May in Yakutia, are now larger than all wildfires around the planet combined, according to Greenpeace. There is no official death toll yet, but at least five people have died so far.
For months, Russian authorities have been saying that the situation was under control. Finally, on Thursday, the minister of Emergency Situations, Yevgeny Zinichev, traveled to the epicenter of the disaster in Yakutia and concluded: the fires will reach Moscow, if nobody stops it.
There are more than 3,000 miles between Moscow and Yakutia, a republic four times bigger than France located in north-eastern Siberia. It is one of the coldest places on the planet in winter time. But this summer has been unusually hot, with unprecedented droughts and strong winds fueling the disaster.
On Wednesday, a local tractor driver died fighting the fire in Yakutia, which has been burning for weeks. Many locals blame the Kremlin for not doing enough to help the burning north. “Russia is a huge power. Every year it demonstrates its military power but cannot put out the fires. Or does it not want to?,” a prominent Yakutia politician, Sardana Avksentyeva, wrote in a Thursday Instagram post.
When Avksentyeva started posting photographs of wildfires on June 8, she was convinced that the special forces of the emergency ministry, known as MCHS, would handle the problem. But by Aug. 1, houses were still burning and animals were still dying as 163 fires raged around the republic.
“It seems the authorities are simply waiting for august rains to put down the fires. MCHS, are you alive?” she wrote on Instagram. “All our pleas to announce the emergency situation were left unanswered.”
Meanwhile, Moscow has been focused on upcoming parliament elections—and on persecuting the opposition. Yakutia had to fight the fires using only its own local budget. “This is a lesson to all the other Russian regions: do not wait for the center’s help, count only on yourself,”
The leader of Greenpeace Russia’s firefighting team, Grigory Kuksin, says that the government is to be blamed for the lack of funding to manage the disaster.
“Russia spends about 30 billion rubles on preventing fires and training regional forest firefighting teams, but the budget should be at least three times bigger,” Kuksin told The Daily Beast on Thursday.
Continued at link