RUSSIAN PRIME minister Vladimir Putin is to personally monitor the reconstruction of homes destroyed in wildfires using a live video feed at his home, he said yesterday, in an extraordinary attempt to defuse public anger.
There has been a wave of criticism about the authorities’ sluggish response to the fires, which have swept across central Russia amid an unprecedented heatwave.
The fires have killed 30 people and gutted at least 2,000 homes.
The emergencies minister, Sergey Shoygu, said at a meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev that 360 villages had been saved from fires in the previous 24 hours but he admitted that “in some places it is getting out of control”.
Mr Putin, Russia’s most popular politician, has tried to limit criticism of the response by visiting destroyed villages and promising compensation.
But angry residents have surrounded him on these visits and complained that firefighters came too late, or that preventive measures were inadequate.
“Today, I have given an order for video cameras to be installed on every construction site,” Mr Putin told villagers in Mokhovoye, near Moscow.
Pictures of the rebuilding of cottages would be beamed directly to “the government building, to me at home and to the website of the government”, he said, adding: “Any citizen will be able to watch in real time what is happening.”
The promise played to Russians’ perennial fears that bureaucrats siphon off funds destined for infrastructure projects, which then grind to a halt.
About 155,000 workers from the emergencies ministry and other state bodies were fighting the fires yesterday. Mr Shoygu earlier blamed a lack of volunteer units and poor enforcement of safety rules at dachas (holiday homes) for the fires’ rapid spread.
There were also 24,000 remote villages beyond the reach of fire trucks, he said.
“By the time we get there, everything has burned down.”
Environmentalists claim that Russia’s 2007 forest code, which was signed into law by Mr Putin, has had the unintended effect of weakening fire-prevention efforts in woodland areas. – (Guardian service)