Surprise! Russia’s leaders are surviving the wildfires much more comfortably than their beleaguered constituents, up to 700 of whom are dying per day in Moscow alone.
Indeed, as the flames threaten to kill up to 15000, cost $15 billion worth of GDP and even turn radioactive (!!!), some things they don’t seem to threaten are the careers of those responsible for the poor preparation and response.
This despite the fact that Medvedev’s approval ratings plummeted to 38% in the last month and Putin’s have fallen as precipitately as the water he’s been dropping from the firefighting plane he has piloted as part of his latest action-man routine.
Even Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, a man long in the Kremlin’s cross-hairs, has escaped with only slight burns from the single limp and passive-aggressive rebuke he received from an unidentified government official.
So far the disaster has claimed the political lives of just one small and isolated group of mid-ranking bureaucrats: Medvedev sacked a few Defence Ministry officials for letting the fire destroy a top military installation. The Minister himself received only a mild rebuke.
That was more than the Minister for Emergencies, Sergei Shoigu, got from his old-time crony Putin despite conceding his helplessness to deal with the blaze. Apparently, he’s doing a heck of a job.
He should tell that to his prime minister, who narrowly avoided being lynched by angry townsfolk.
Mr. Putin, visiting a village in the Nizhny Novgorod region where 11 people had died in a fire, got a firsthand view of the rising anger over the fire response. When he waded into a crowd to discuss a plan for monetary compensation, a woman yelled in anger.
“You didn’t do anything, everything is burning, don’t make promises,” the woman said, according to a video of the encounter posted on the Internet. Mr. Putin said he could do nothing now, as the village had already burned. “We asked for help. We trusted you. Why didn’t anybody do anything?” the woman said.
That’s right! What’s the point of looking for blame when the damage has already been done? Like get over it and move on already, Russia!