Few things in Russia are ever as they seem. Take this week’s unprecedented measure to provide each widow of the mine explosion victims with police protection to ward off attacks from organised criminals after their compensation payouts.
After one of the victims’ relatives went to the authorities complaining of blackmail from a notorious local gang, the governor of Kemerevo has ordered police officers to provide round the clock protection to the families receiving compensation.
This move would be bad enough PR in itself for a government that is increasingly seen as not only having failed to protect the miners themselves but also their relatives. At a wider level, it shows that a full decade after the notorious banditism of the Yeltsin years, entire cities remain in the thrall of organised crime.
The discontent has led to a spate of demonstrations from aggrieved and grieving locals protesting the mine conditions and the government’s failure to properly handle the disaster.
Putting two and two together (and perhaps getting 5 0r 6), some opposition leaders have suggested that the police protection is designed not to shield the victims from the gangsters, but to protect Putin from the victims themselves.
An opposition politician has warned that the local authorities may be using this issue as an excuse to keep watch over the miners’ families to prevent any further demonstrations.
Both the local and national authorities have reasons to be fearful of a large protest movement developing amongst the workforce in the mines.
In the late 1990s, miners marched to Moscow – directly confronting the government with their grievances.
I’m a little sceptical of this charge (bearing in mind that some members of the opposition, particularly on the Novodvorskaya fringe, are given to accuse the regime of some pretty unsubstantiated crimes and conspiracies), particularly as the continued influence of organised crime makes such blackmail a very plausible scenario without the need for any Kremlin plot.
Putin’s simple failure to protect his citizens from common thugs despite amassing so much authoritarian political power and the government’s quick capitulation to organised crime are damning enough on their own.