| The accident in Moscow could become a political assassination attempt on Chubais The political consequences of the Moscow blackout may be no less serious than the technological or domestic ones. The president has compelling reasons to dismiss Anatoly Chubais from his post, the last head of the “state-forming” Russian natural monopoly, who is not a member of Putin’s team, like the head of Gazprom, Alexey Miller, or an absolutely loyal non-political figure, like the head of Russian Railways, Gennady Fadeev.
Yesterday, due to an accident in Moscow, the president was forced to delay his flight to the Rostov region to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Mikhail Sholokhov. And, hot on the heels, he gave an unambiguous political assessment of the cascading power outages in the capital and the regions closest to it: “It is quite possible to talk about the insufficient attention of RAO UES to the current activities of the company. It is necessary to deal not only with global problems regarding the company’s policy and its reform, but also pay attention to current activities," the head of state said. Putin believes that the cause of the emergency “was not only problems associated with equipment wear and tear, although this is also true,” but also the lack of timely preventive repairs on the part of RAO UES. At the same time, the president directly supported the actions of the Moscow authorities, who have long been in conflict with Mosenergo and are trying to lobby for the idea of creating their own energy company: “I would like to express my gratitude to all Moscow city services that responded quite quickly and took care of people in contact with the federal authorities.”
After an emergency meeting with the Prime Minister, Anatoly Chubais publicly took responsibility for the accident and apologized to the people: “On behalf of the company and on my own behalf, I want to apologize to Muscovites, residents of the Tula region who suffered as a result of power outages and found themselves in subway cars , couldn’t get to work.” And he added that this situation, as well as the accompanying shutdowns of pumping stations, which left people without hot water, must be classified as errors for which RAO UES of Russia is responsible.
At the same time, at a meeting with the prime minister, the country’s chief power engineer nevertheless tried to turn the situation in his favor and repeated what he has been repeating for almost five years, during which, through the fiercest resistance of industry lobbyists (primarily metallurgists) and officials, he has been promoting the reform of the electric power industry: the industry needs investment , because the equipment is worn out and there is no money to replace it.
Now the whole question is how the Kremlin will react to the extremely vulnerable position in which its potential political opponent finds itself. Although Anatoly Chubais left the party leadership after the defeat of the Union of Right Forces in the 2003 Duma elections and has not made any anti-Putin statements since then, he undoubtedly remains one of the major shadow figures of a possible united right-wing liberal opposition. Of course, in such a situation, the authorities (and especially the “power” part of it) are tempted to simply replace Chubais with “their own man” at the next annual meeting of shareholders of RAO UES at the end of June. Fortunately, the state owns a controlling stake in RAO, and therefore has an absolutely legal opportunity to carry out such a decision.
However, such a replacement has at least as many disadvantages as advantages. It is obvious that Chubais’s resignation alone will not solve the real problems of the electric power industry, which is in a state of disrepair throughout Russia. And there will be no one to shift responsibility for each new accident of this kind (they are very likely). In addition, being a top manager of the largest state-owned company, Anatoly Chubais, by definition, cannot actively engage in politics. If he becomes a private person, such an opportunity opens up.
However, instead of Anatoly Chubais, the main victim - up to and including criminal liability - may be the head of Mosenergo, Arkady Evstafiev, who, according to some information, has long been planning to leave the company. The Prosecutor General's Office has already opened a criminal case against the leadership of RAO RAO, and announced the upcoming interrogation of Anatoly Chubais. But Mr. Evstafiev is responsible for the supply of electricity in the Moscow region. In addition, this criminal case, regardless of its outcome, increases the chances of the Moscow authorities to gain control over Mosenergo or create their own energy company. Now such a project may well receive political approval from the Kremlin.
In any case, the main political lesson of the accident in Moscow is that the stability of any government can be shaken without any “intrigues of the opposition” or barbaric actions of terrorists. It is enough simply that the life support systems in the country are in a worn-out state. In Russia, these systems are so worn out that the country lives in the mode of a latent man-made disaster. All we can do is wait to see where it will break through next time. And even Chubais is not to blame for this. Semyon NOVOPRUDSKY |
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