Putin sent Mishustin to the fire

Vladimir Putin confirmed that he is not tied to dates and figures: on August 24, he held a meeting on fighting fires, but did not speak about half a year of the special operation. According to the president, in general, the situation with fires is better than last year, but three regions – the Ryazan and Nizhny Novgorod regions, as well as the Mari El Republic – require special attention. It will be provided by an impressive troop of federal officials led by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, who Putin has instructed to personally visit the territories affected by the fire.

Vladimir Putin has already held events to combat forest fires – on May 10 there was a large thematic meeting, and on July 25 the president heard a report from the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Alexander Kurenkov, who complained that people on the ground “behave a little relaxed” and “work in the old way.”

On August 15, another meeting on fires was held by Mikhail Mishustin: it was said that the federal money that the regions receive for extinguishing fires was doubled this year from 6 to 14.2 billion rubles – and is that why, either due to favorable weather conditions in the Far East (and most likely due to the combination of two factors), the number of fires decreased by 15%, and the area covered by fire decreased by more than two times.

However, the prime minister looked into the water. “The situation remains difficult!” he warned, stressing that our country is large and governors must remain vigilant.

And at the end of August, it “flew” from where they were not expected: smog from fires in the regions of Central Russia covered Moscow and the region. Although compared to what was happening in the Far East (recall that in 2021, 4 million hectares burned in Yakutia alone), the fire area in the Ryazan and Nizhny Novgorod regions is small (less than 20 thousand hectares in total), the topic of fires has re-entered on the Kremlin’s agenda.

Sources say that, in fact, on August 24 or 25, Vladimir Putin planned to hold a traditional pre-election meeting with the acting governor of the Ryazan region, Pavel Malkov. However, in the situation in which the region found itself, it was clearly not comme il faut to discuss successes in socio-economic development. And Mr. Malkov had to report on the main problem – the fight against forest fires.

It followed from his explanations that the emergency situations, by and large, were simply overblown. They thought that the fire was about to go out, and the federal center was not informed about it. The real struggle began when the smog reached Moscow – now the main part of the group is the power of the capital’s government, which learned the sad experience of 2010 (recall that then the smog from peat fires led to the resignation of Yuri Luzhkov). “All prefectures have arrived with the necessary equipment,” Malkov said.

Sergei Sobyanin clarified that this is not just equipment, but 28 powerful bulldozers and 6 helicopters, sharpened to fight fires of any complexity. Now, according to the mayor, there are enough forces and means in the Ryazan region, but the scale of the emergency is such that it takes time to localize it. “12 thousand hectares is already a whole military operation,” he stressed.

Sobyanin proposed to Putin to change the criteria according to which a fire is given federal status. And, among other things, take into account the spread of smog. For example, now the smoke from the Ryazan fires spreads over 400 km. They affect 20 million people living not only in the Ryazan region, but also in other regions (these are Moscow, Moscow Region and Vladimir region. – “MK”). In addition, according to the Moscow mayor, neighbors have problems with preventive measures: fires often occur in the same places, but access roads and special lanes to stop the spread of flames are not being built there.

The governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region hastened to report that his fires had no effect on the smoke in Moscow. And in general, unlike Ryazan, the development of the negative scenario has been stopped – the fire has been localized, “extinguishing is underway.” Things are even better in Mari El: there is only one fire, and only 27 hectares are in the active stage of burning. All three governors assured the president that within 2-3 days the situation in the territories entrusted to them would fundamentally improve. And completely fires in the Central part of the Russian Federation will be eliminated in two weeks.

However, on the eve of the elections, Vladimir Putin decided not to let things take their course and send an impressive group of federal officials to the “regions of burning”. More precisely, at first it was only about Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko, who on the eve headed the government commission for fighting fires.

But there were many more who wanted to. “With your permission, I would like to personally take part in a business trip to the most burning regions,” Alexander Kurenkov addressed Putin, as if the minister in charge of emergency response could not go to the scene without the president’s approval.

In addition, Sergey Sobyanin and the head of the Ministry of Natural Resources Alexander Kozlov announced their intention to join Grigorenko. Vladimir Putin supported their initiative. But still decided that this would not be enough.

“I would ask Mikhail Mishustin to visit these territories too. Please prepare relevant materials,” he addressed the officials. The President stressed that the country has all the means, forces and resources to respond to such emergencies – the events “on the liberation of the DPR” and “stabilization of the situation in the LPR” do not affect this in any way. “The only question is the organization of work,” he said. Putin noted that while visiting troubled regions, officials should think not only about extinguishing fires, but also about helping the victims. “I ask the Ministry of Emergency Situations and government services to prepare appropriate proposals,” the President ordered.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 28854 dated August 25, 2022

Newspaper headline:
The prime minister will go to the “burning regions”