Moscow Not Only Behind Increase in Forest Fires in Russia But is Using Them to Justify More Repression, Kuznetsov Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 25 – It has been well documented that Putin and his expanded war in Ukraine are responsible for the radical increase in the number of forest fires and their attendant destruction across the Russian Federation (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/03/putins-war-leading-directly-to-more.html).

    Now, it has been shown by Pavel Kuznetsov, an independent Russian journalist who now lives in Germany, that the Kremlin leader is using these fires and the lack of equipment and personnel to fight them as justification for imposing more restrictions on the lives of Russians (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/04/25/a-koliuchei-provolokoi-poselki-obnosit-ne-planiruiut).

    Because he has gutted the foreign service and left large swaths of the country at risk of destructive fires so as to have money for his war in Ukraine, Putin’s officials are imposing new restrictions on where Russians can live and travel because of the fires that they and their boss have created.

    As one expert in fire prevention in the Trans-Baikal told Kuznetsov, given the situation the regime has created, it simply does not have any other way to fight fires than by means of administrative measures, however inefficient and ineffective such approaches to the problem in fact are.