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Reaction to the first fire reports. Photo: State Emergency Service of the Lugansk region
A month after the deadly fires in the Lugansk region, in which 11 people died, hundreds of houses and tens of thousands of hectares of forest caught fire, investigators presented a version about the main cause of the disaster.
According to the State Investigations Office, rescuers in the Lugansk region systematically looted fuel, thus unable to arrive in time to extinguish the fires.
These findings discard the authorities’ initial theory that the fires were to blame for the separatists, who, they say, lit the forest with tracer bullets. This was affirmed at all levels, from the president to the RRB itself.
“Strana” understood the details of this story.
New version of fires
Employees of the State Investigation Office have identified new causes that could lead to fires in the Lugansk region in July and September-October 2020.
The main reason is the systematic theft of fuel by the leaders of the State Emergency Service, in particular, in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region.
As part of the investigation, it turned out that in almost all structural subdivisions of the regional State Emergency Service, with the instructions of the management, special technical means were purchased to correct the odometers of cars.
With their help, manipulations with the mileage of special equipment were systematically carried out, the actual mileage of cars was overestimated. The fuel was stolen, which in the first man-made emergency led to a catastrophic tragedy, because fire trucks were unable to get to the scene of the fire in time and quickly locate the fire.
The SBI came to this conclusion after a series of searches in the structural divisions of the region, as well as interrogations of officials. The probable instruments of the crime were seized, as well as documents and other elements that became evidence in the criminal process.
The investigation is also studying the activities of the Headquarters for the elimination of the consequences of the emergency, as well as the coordination of the actions of the forces involved in extinguishing the fires. The pre-trial investigation in criminal proceedings is carried out due to official negligence, which had serious consequences (part 2 of Article 367 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
The sanction of the article provides for a prison sentence of 2 to 5 years with the deprivation of the right to hold certain positions for up to 3 years and with a fine of 250 to 750 minimum non-taxable income of citizens or without it (from 4,250 to 12 750 UAH).
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These devices helped increase the mileage of fire trucks, while selling gasoline. Photo: GBR
Who was originally blamed for the fires?
However, they did not immediately begin to nod at the corruption in the State Emergency Service.
On the first day of the fires, the main version of the Ukrainian authorities was the sabotage of the separatists. Apparently they deliberately fired into the forest and thus set it on fire.
The first of these versions was expressed at the headquarters of the Joint Forces: “The enemy opened fire near Stanitsa Luhanska with an automatic trestle grenade launcher. The military of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, together with the State Emergency Committee and representatives from the forestry company, continue to locate the fires caused by hostile armed provocations with the use of tracer bullets the day before.
The total area of fire is more than 85 hectares “, – said the president of the OOS Yaroslava Zorina.
After that, the version of the fire set by the separatists was picked up by the Office of the President:
“We take into account information about provocative bombings that could have been carried out from the temporarily occupied territory of our state by illegal armed groups and could cause at least some of these fires in the climatic conditions established in the contact line these days”, reported the website of the Office of the President of Ukraine.
The governor of the Lugansk region, Sergei Gaidai, also put the deliberate bombing and arson set by the “LPR” first. He said that in different parts of the region there were 146 fires at the same time and suggested shelling from uncontrolled territories with arson tracers.
Also, the first of the possible names the version of the bombing of the Attorney General’s Office.
“The investigation is verifying all versions of the occurrence of fires. The main ones are: bombings by illegal armed groups from the territory of the Lugansk region not controlled by state authorities, arson, spontaneous combustion of pastures and forests due to to weather conditions, careless handling of the fire, “the Office said.
Interestingly, among the versions listed, there was not a single one that was associated with the failure of rescue services.
That is, the “LPR footprint” was the main narrative in power after the start of the fires. And all departments expressed this version as if they had a command.
The “tracer bullet” hypothesis emerged on the morning of the first day of the fires, when its scope became clear. When I got close to big cities like Severodonetsk. And it was necessary to explain such a “zrada” for something.
Consequences of fires
The fire in the territory of the Novoaydar region, which broke out on July 6, was extinguished on July 13 at 17:20. Near the village. The Oskolonovka Novoaydarsky district of the Lugansk region on the territory of the Borovsky and Akhtyrsky forests destroyed 10% of the total forest area (5 thousand hectares).
As a result of the fire, the death of 5 people was confirmed, 34 people (15 of them children) were hospitalized. 71 people went to the hospital for medical help.
The estimated amount of losses from the fire exceeded 450 million UAH.
The forest fires that broke out on September 30 were only liquidated on October 9, when some 20,000 hectares were engulfed in fire. According to the State Committee for Emergency Situations of the Lugansk region, 11 people died during the liquidation of the forest fires.
Three died as a result of poisoning by combustion products, one person – from burns, 3 people – as a result of a heart attack, the cause of death of another 4 people was established.
During the extinguishing of the fires, rescuers evacuated 150 people. 19 people were injured (including 3 employees of the Ministry of State Emergencies).
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denis Shmygal also noted that some 19,000 hectares of forest plantations and up to 400 houses were damaged by the fire. 10 criminal proceedings were started.
According to preliminary estimates, the damage from the fires that occurred in late September and early October in the Lugansk region is measured in billions of hryvnias. This opinion was expressed in an interview with “Focus” by the Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, Roman Abramovsky. “The damage is being calculated, it will be billions of hryvnia,” he said.
