"We extinguished the fire from bottles." Emergencies Ministry needs urgent reform

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The Investigative Committee summoned the ex-head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Vladimir Puchkov for questioning. The former minister is still undergoing a criminal case of abuse of power by a witness. However, it is already obvious that over the 6 years of his leadership (2012-2018) Puchkov brought the Emergencies Ministry to an emergency.

The former minister's troubles began back in 2015, when the Tverskoy court arrested his former first deputy, Sergei Shlyakov. According to the investigation, Shlyakov tried to sell the position of acting. Governor of the Yaroslavl Region. In exchange for this, the former deputy head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations demanded 1 million rubles

Former investigator of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation for particularly important cases, lawyer Vladimir Kalinichenkoexpressed the following point of view to Novy Izvestia:

“In power structures, and not only in them, there is such a practice: if the first deputy is officially dismissed, the head automatically submits a resignation report. All over the world it is. Only here for some reason everything is different. After the scandal with the arrest of his first deputy, Puchkov continued to work … As for the case, in which he is a witness, this is Article 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - “abuse of office”. It provides for from 3 to 10 years in prison”.

The scandal with the arrest of Shlyakov was just the beginning of high-profile "punctures" of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. On March 25, 2017, the largest fire in recent years occurred in the Kemerovo shopping and entertainment center "Zimnyaya Vishnya." Then 60 people died, including 41 children. The officers of the Ministry of Emergency Situations were also detained, in particular, the head of the fire extinguishing operation was arrested Andrey Bursin … He was charged under Part 3 of Art. 293 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (criminal negligence). And before that, the head of the Main Directorate of the EMERCOM of Russia in the Kemerovo Region went to the bunk Alexander Mamontov(he was accused of embezzlement and negligence). When Vladimir Puchkovasked how he assessed the actions of the rescuers, the ex-minister said that the firefighters, in his opinion, "Did everything that depends on them" … Shortly after this statement in the Besogon program Nikita Mikhalkov, who is known for his closeness to the presidential structures, was told about the complete collapse of work in the Ministry of Emergencies. They talked about a sharp reduction in personnel, about the dismissal of qualified personnel, about the inappropriate spending of budgetary funds, the collapse of the technical support of the department's work. “As of 2017, on average, 30% of the personnel were reduced in the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and up to 50% on guard. Those. there was virtually no one to put out fires in 1917, " - sounded in the program.

Soon Puchkov was removed from office. He tried to find a new job, even put forward his candidacy for the post of senator from Primorye. However, the Investigative Committee suspected that the Kemerovo rescuers might have conspired to interfere with the investigation of the fire in the Zimnyaya Vishnya shopping and entertainment center. Checks broke out. According to the results of the audit, the Ministry of Emergency Situations revealed 280 thousand violations of fire regulations. But the matter did not end there …

Police Lieutenant General Alexander Mikhailov told "Novy Izvestia":

“The clouds have been gathering over Puchkov for a long time. He actually turned the Emergencies Ministry into a money laundering system. Under him, accounting and control in this structure was actually abolished: no one knew how many square meters burned down in the fire, how many and where the tents were sent, where the humanitarian aid went. We were shown on TV "Ruslans" loaded with humanitarian aid, but in fact this aid either did not reach its destination systematically, or disappeared … In general, the Emergencies Ministry turned into a wide field of activity for a person not burdened with the concepts of honesty and morality."

In principle, all this was confirmed by a large-scale internal audit, which took place at the Ministry of Emergencies in May-June of this year. Some of its results were reported to the President by the new Minister of Emergencies Evgeny Zinichev … The main problem in the report is the personnel problem. In short, the department has become an analogue of a fairy tale Saltykov-Shchedrin "About how one man fed two generals" … In the Emergencies Ministry under Puchkov, one firefighter actually had, if not two generals, then two officials for sure. Because of these "personnel reforms" it came to the point that the representatives of the fire service, due to their small number, instead of extinguishing fires and rescuing people, were only engaged in fixing the emergency with the help of photographic and video equipment. As for the fires, there was virtually no one to extinguish them … And so it happened in July this year. It all started when the Finnish Border Guard Detachment in Lapland posted the following information on Twitter: “Attention everyone who plans to travel to Russia through the Raya-Jooseppi checkpoint! Movement after the Lotta checkpoint further into the interior of Russia is temporarily impossible due to a forest fire that has spread to the road. "

And this fire came from the Murmansk region, where, as it turned out, there was simply no one to extinguish it. The situation was catastrophic. The Lapland Nature Reserve burned, the fire raged in the Kandalaksha, Lovozersk, Pechenga regions. One of the fires was recorded near the village of Teriberki, Kola region, where local authorities held a song and dance festival. Since there was no one to extinguish the fire, the administration of the Kola region turned to volunteers, of whom there were only 15-20 people, for help. They were promised five thousand rubles a day to fight the flame …

Former head of the Teriberk fire department Vladimir Kichigincommented on the incident: “There is an instruction: the state fire service has no right to extinguish further than 200 meters from the road. Their equipment is not designed for remote fires. This should be dealt with by aviation forestry. But the administrations of districts and cities must conclude agreements with it. But there is no money. Nobody extinguishes it."

“We used to take a plastic bottle, make holes in the lid, pour water and sprinkle it like that. We always had about five such bottles in our car. The guys and I extinguished ,

- said the former firefighter.

The fact that unarmed volunteers have recently been involved in extinguishing fires was confirmed by the regional administration of the Murmansk region. The firefighters did not have either motor pumps or "sleeves" for extinguishing the fire … Whether the volunteers will come to extinguish the fires with buckets and kettles next time is a rhetorical question.

And now a few figures from the check in the Ministry of Emergency Situations, which was carried out by the new leadership of this department this year.

“Due to a 50% cut in the staff of the State Fire Supervision, each of the 9,800 inspectors has more than a thousand facilities (there are about 10 million of them in the country). The personnel shortage is felt in the aviation detachments of the Ministry of Emergency Situations… The shortage of employees arose as a result of personnel optimization that took place in 2014–2018. Because of this, the quality of extinguishing fires has also dropped. The rescuers' budget was constantly decreasing: in 2015 it amounted to 183.4 billion rubles, in 2016 - 172.0 billion, in 2017 - 168.7 billion”

As for technology, the situation in the Ministry of Emergencies is simply catastrophic. High-rise equipment, auto ladders, special lifts worth more than 1 billion rubles, firefighters' combat clothing worth more than 75 million rubles, fire hoses - more than 39 thousand units worth more than 170 million rubles - have been excluded from the state armaments program. At the same time, for some reason, 2 thousand drones worth 450 million rubles were included in the state program for equipping the Ministry of Emergency Situations under Vladimir Puchkov, although the real need for them, according to the inspectors, is much less. By the way, the Emergencies Ministry still has a large number of helicopter-type drones in service. The trouble is that they are practically unnecessary: their technical characteristics do not correspond to the needs of extinguishing fires. What was the budget money spent by Puchkov and his entourage? I think this is a question that will not least interest investigators from the TFR. By the way, it was under Vladimir Puchkov that the Emergencies Ministry acquired luxurious offices on the territory of the former Stalin's dacha. Foreign cars, loaded with food and drinks, drove there more than once …

Emergencies Ministry facility at the former Stalinist dacha

For some reason, it is forbidden to photograph the mansions of the Ministry of Emergency Situations

There are different versions about the future of the Emergencies Ministry. Our source in the Ministry of Internal Affairs expressed the opinion that there are plans to separate the Fire Protection into a separate structure. This is indirectly confirmed by the opinions of experts. For example, what the honored rescuer of Russia said Alexander Gofshtein:

“After Shoigu left, a man with an office education came to his place, the state secretary is the head of the chancellery. And it turned out that the ministry was dominated not by issues of professionalism, but by personal connections..

According to Gofshtein, the need to reform the ministry has arisen long ago.

"There is a large layer in the Emergencies Ministry - civil defense, which came from the army, it is now dangling by itself and parasitizing the Emergencies Ministry. Shoiguthere was an opinion that civil defense should be returned to the Ministry of Defense. The second part is the firefighters, a paramilitary structure that used to belong to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The third part, the civil one, is the rescuers, the most versatile, the most professional and educated part of the ministry's employees … My forecast is that these three services should be separated long ago, and then the Emergencies Ministry will become a harmoniously working structure. Rescuers should be left as rescuers, perhaps, the ministry's status should be reduced to an agency or service, the overgrown bureaucratic apparatus should be reduced to zero and the division of professions should begin,"

- the expert considers.

As for the fate of the ex-Minister of Emergency Situations Puchkov, then, most likely, he should not dream of an honorable resignation.

“I do not exclude that the future of Puchkov will not be cloudless,

- says Police Lieutenant General Alexander Mikhailov.

- He did not enter the new government, and he was not released "in peace", moreover, he was summoned for interrogation in the TFR. His activities as Minister of Emergency Situations are now being thoroughly investigated. What preferences can be when it comes to the safety and life of people ?! Moreover, now the political moment is such that the president will only benefit from any loud exposure."