Far from the western front of its "special military operation" in Ukraine, the Kremlin is caught up in other fires: forest fires in the country's vast eastern regions. As was the case in the past, the fires are affecting remote, sparsely populated regions. Recently they have been devastating larger areas than in previous years, the authorities announced on July 10. More than a million hectares of forest have burned, with some 500 outbreaks across the country, in Siberia and the Russian Far East, notably in Yakutia, exceeding annual forecasts by tens, even hundreds of percentage points.

Due to an early and intense heat wave, these fires became active earlier this summer. Since the beginning of the year, 6,000 fires have burned almost 3.5 million hectares – an area the size of Normandy. A government decree had set a maximum of 5.1 million hectares for the whole of 2024. At the current rate, this threshold could be exceeded as early as July 20.

"The taiga is burning." lamented Irina, one of the many residents of the Irkutsk region, where fires have already exceeded the forecast threshold (+ 328% of the established area for the year). Contacted by Le Monde, the young woman, who did not wish to be identified, repeated what populations have been denouncing summer after summer for years. "The problem is global, starting with the collapse of our forestry industry and our means of protection, particularly by air," she said. "The forests are disappearing. But the problem is not just in the forest and its poor management. It's largely in the heads of the people and the authorities, who don't want to see it or fight it."

The means to fight these fires are indeed cruelly lacking, and the conflict in Ukraine has exacerbated these deficiencies. Companies producing fire-fighting equipment have either left Russia or redirected their production to the military-industrial complex. In addition, men usually mobilized in the summer to fight fires in these poor regions have joined the front line in Ukraine, lured by generous pay.

Testimonies and criticism of fire management are spreading on social media, Russia's last rare space of free expression. For example, north of Lake Baikal, residents of the villages of Chara, Novaya Chara and Ikabya, which have been covered in thick gray smoke making it impossible to breathe normally, tell how they have been reduced to fighting the flames themselves, with buckets, watering cans, bottles, pumps, tankers and even garden sprayers. "Out of desperation, we'll do anything to protect ourselves," said a mother. "We're suffocating from the fumes, visibility in the villages is nil and the bears are fleeing the taiga! Nobody cares." In return, investigators threatened some of those who spoke out online with criminal prosecution for "discrediting" authorities.

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