Smoke from Russian fires blankets Moscow

[Jan Klimkowski]

On August 17, RosBiznesKonsalting reported: ?In Zavadskii village in
Riazan oblast, Irina Iakovleva was refused compensation for her mother,
who died in a fire. At the government office in Sasovskii, they told her
that ?she died on July 26, but it has to be after the 28th.?

(snip)

The scale of the fires, and the thousands of deaths they caused, are
bound up with the semi-privatization of Russia?s forests in the
interests of powerful logging and paper manufacturing corporations and
the near-total liquidation of the country?s 70,000-strong forestry
service. The collapse of infrastructure in poor rural areas meant that
villages burnt to the ground for lack of firefighting equipment, while
in some cases the summer homes of nearby wealthy residents were saved by
emergency services that were ordered to ignore the pleas of ordinary
people for help.

The oligarchs and the KGB were only too happy to assist western looters with the application of economic Shock Therapy to Russia.

Of course, everything is cool for the oligarchs. If there's a fire, they just divert the firefighters from saving the village to saving their country mansion.

It's as the serfs were never emancipated and the the Russian revolution never happened. :bootyshake:

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have
attempted to head off rising popular anger over the wildfires through a
series of publicity stunts. Medvedev held a meeting with Russia?s
oligarchs to insist that they ?share? in the suffering by contributing
financially to rebuilding homes and compensating victims, while Putin
rode in the cockpit of a bomber dropping water on fires.

In a meeting with several of Russia?s wealthiest and most powerful
businessmen, Medvedev thanked oligarch Oleg Deripaska for his
willingness to extend his ?patronage? to some of Russia?s destroyed
villages.

(snip)

The amount of aid promised to disaster victims, which has ranged in
different government statements from 200,000 to 2 million rubles (about
$7,000 to $66,000), is probably equivalent to what one of Russia?s
multi-billionaire businessmen spends on a casual afternoon of shopping.
The Kremlin?s efforts to make a show of demanding that this criminal
elite help the fire victims are at once absurd and grotesque.

Putin and Medvedev have clearly been taking lessons from New Labour and Republican spin doctors.

Provide the masses with some showy "photo opportunity", designed to demonstrate that the Dear Leader is a Man of the People, taking personal action to Save The Day, and sideline anyone who describes such behaviour as superficial, evasive or the Theatre of the Truly Absurd.

The lesson that the ruling elite is drawing from these events is that it
is necessary to further consolidate its grip on power in order to
prevent similar crises in the future from sparking a challenge to its
authority. In an August 11 article published in the government newspaper
Rossiskaia Gazeta and entitled ?Lessons of a Hot Summer,? Nikolai Zlobin
warns that the Russian state must consider the national security
implications of the wildfire disaster.

?Today [national security] threats frequently lie in spheres far removed
from the purely military. When such threats are unexpectedly exacerbated
the state and its citizens become vulnerable and defenseless and the
situation threatens to get out of control, to become unmanageable, and
to lead to destabilization, instability, and a decline in the
authorities? prestige.?

Ah yes. Power does tend to Corrupt.

:eviltongue: