Dit artikel is twee dagen oud maar wilde ik nog delen. Het past mooi in een "Het gebeurde in Rusland" serie.
The Washington Post beschrijft in wat breder perspectief de verschijnselen die we allemaal hebben zien langskomen. Explosies in Rusland. Plotselinge branden. De informatie komt maar schetsmatig naar buiten, via smartphones van burgers. De Russische overheid hangt deze gebeurtenissen liever niet aan de grote klok.
Voor mij was de verrassing dat het vaak niet eens te maken had met sabotageacties maar met gewoon falende infrastructuur. Ik ben er nog niet uit welke van de twee eigenlijk erger is. Die falende infrastructuur is indirect veroorzaakt door (voor mij een nieuwe term, prachtige omschrijving) "endemische corruptie".
Ook zien we hier de keerzijde van het Russische beleid om met een BNP van een gemiddeld West-Europees land het defensiebeleid te voeren dat Rusland voert. Het geld moet ergens vandaan komen. Ook zien we hier dus een domein waar de sancties Rusland bijten.
The Washington Post (
Deelartikel)
As Russia bombs Ukraine’s infrastructure, its own services crumble
Een kleine bloemlezing uit het artikel wat er zoal misgaat:
- a huge gas pipeline explosion outside St. Petersburg last month
- major fires in two separate Moscow shopping malls allegedly caused by dodgy welding
- faulty power grids that have left tens of thousands without heat and electricity
- two sewer pipes burst in the southern city of Volgograd, flooding several streets with feces and waste water, and leaving 200,000 of the 1 million residents without water or heating for several days
- sewage problem in the town of Pervouralsk, a small city west of Yekaterinburg
- in Omsk 40,000 houses do not receive gas
Over het trendmatige aspect: Een lokale wetegever van Volgograd stelde:
“This is the worst year on record. The city has never had so many problems,” Kravchenko said.
Of, anders geformuleerd door een lokale Russische krant:
“Not a day goes by that we don’t hear from one region or another in Russia about an accident in the housing and utilities sector,” declared a recent article in a local newspaper in the city of Perm.
“During the last heating season more than 7,300 accidents occurred in housing and utilities sector of the country, and, judging by the way the winter started in 2022, one should not expect the statistics to go down” the article said.
Een groot precentage van de bestaande Russische infrastructuur is al hard aan onderhoud nodig:
Meanwhile, a Russian senator, Andrei Shevchenko, said last year that utility infrastructure in Russia had depreciated by 60 percent and that the cost of needed repairs exceeded 4 trillion rubles, or about $58 billion. Shevchenko noted that in some regions, the state of public utilities was “of great concern,” and that in some cases the overall wear and tear had exceeded 70 percent.
En hier komen de westerse sancties dus in het verhaal:
Analysts say that infrastructure-related disruptions could soon multiply as Western sanctions start to bite, and that ongoing, preexisting problems are adding to growing popular discontent about the consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
[...]
sweeping sanctions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have disrupted supply chains in the country and may significantly curtail Russia’s ability to resolve its own infrastructure problems.
[...]
Russia has long relied on imported equipment and technology and does not yet have the domestic manufacturing capacity to fill this gap.
Om de semantische discussie in dit topic even wat vaste grond onder de voeten te bieden:
Vladimir Milov, a former deputy energy minister turned opposition politician, said infrastructure failures would not trigger protests but would contribute to an eventual uprising against the Kremlin.
“There will be a tipping point,” Milov said. “There is a wave of mounting negative impacts on different fronts: Russia’s economic isolation, sanctions and infrastructure problems. It will not spark protests by itself, but it adds to an overall feeling of unhappiness.”
Vooralsnog denkt het bewind dat alles onder controle is en zal blijven:
Milov said Putin had “a thousand-ruble mentality,” meaning that whenever discontent brews, the Kremlin announces small cash handouts (1,000 rubles is about $15) to citizens to stifle unrest. A similar strategy of offering financial benefits has been rolled to mollify the families of soldiers killed in Ukraine.
“Putin and his government are used to thinking that the Russian population are folks who will continue to suffer and tolerate all this negativity,” Milov said, “for as long as they rule.”
Het wachten is op het kantelpunt:
“Russia’s cup of patience is absolutely full, and each drop can lead to protests and unrest,” Petrov said, adding that since pension changes sparked angry demonstrations in 2018, regional discontent and a willingness to protest has spiked. “It’s important to understand that although we do not have intensive protests in Russia, the situation now is very different from what it used to be prior to 2018.”