August has once more brought disaster to Russia. This same month has, over a dozen years, seen Russia’s sovereign default, two submarine accidents, terror bombings of airliners and the Georgian war. Now it has witnessed the deadly climax of the country’s worst heatwave.
Wildfires have directly killed at least 54 people and left thousands homeless. The heat and smog from blazing forests and smouldering peat bogs has caused the premature deaths of thousands more. Moscow’s mortality rate doubled to 700 a day. Yet, more starkly than ever, the fires have exposed – despite the flood of oil and gas revenues over the past decade – the degradation of Russia’s infrastructure and public administration.
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