Vladimir Putin’s reelection campaign has hit a snag: hot-water pipes that explode, resulting in tens of thousands of people without heat in Russian winter.
In “First It Was Eggs. Now Exploding Hot-Water Pipes. The Domestic Headaches Overshadowing Putin's Reelection Messaging”, RFE/RL’s Mike Eckel reports that on Thursday:
In Siberia's Novosibirsk, Russia's third-largest city, a major hot-water main burst, sending cascades of steaming water rushing through frozen streets and cutting off heating to scores of buildings — and thousands of people — amid Arctic temperatures.
This is not an isolated incident. Many Russian cities use heating plants that provide hot water to radiators in residential buildings, and these systems are becoming increasingly dilapidated as the Russian war machine drains resources from Russian infrastructure.
Eckels reports similar disasters in Vladivostok, and — more importantly for Putin — in Moscow suburbs where heat to more than 150,000 people has been cut off. Although the Kremlin initially blamed its Moscow problems on “anomalous” cold weather, after many complaints from shivering residents Russian officials eventually responded by arresting executives of the local heating plant. These executives were reportedly former Putin bodyguard Igor Rudyka and former FSB (Russian secret police) officer Igor Kushnikov.
As Eckels writes:
The plant's owners, meanwhile, include a Russian-Mexican crime boss as well as the state industrial conglomerate Rostec, according to Systema, RFE/RL's Russian investigative unit. Rostec's chief executive officer is Sergei Chemezov, who served with Putin when the two were KGB agents stationed in East Germany.
At last report these bigwigs were still free and Moscow-area residents were still shivering.
So there you have it! Infrastructure, Putin style! And if Putin’s fanboy Trump wins the presidency and puts his cronies in charge of US infrastructure, we can expect more stories like that here!