Russia adopts compulsory evacuation law & protocols for mass graves
Preparing for a worst-case scenario?
On December 30, President Vladimir Putin signed a law requiring Russian citizens to evacuate from designated areas in case of a natural or man-made emergency.
In a press release, Russia’s Emergencies Ministry (EMERCOM) explained the aim of the newly adopted legislation:
“The law is aimed at protecting the population only from natural and man-made emergencies. The bill imposes on citizens the obligation to evacuate from the scene of an emergency when their life and health are in danger,” the Russian Emergencies Ministry said.
In addition, the law obliges the federal executive authorities to provide the EMERCOM of Russia with free permanent access to information systems within the framework of the unified state system for the prevention and elimination of emergencies. The use of information resources will reduce the time required to collect the necessary information, increasing the efficiency of decision-making and response to incidents and emergencies.
And what does government-ordered evacuation entail? Apparently it means you have to do whatever authorities tell you to do:
The evacuees do not have the right to independently, without the permission of the local evacuation authorities, choose points and place of residence and move from one area to another. They are obliged to strictly follow all instructions from local authorities.
The law’s adoption comes about two weeks after it was revealed that EMERCOM published a new national protocol, “Urgent burial of corpses in peacetime and wartime," which provides instructions on how to bury thousands of people together in mass graves.
The document was reportedly drawn up by the Federal Institute of Civil Defense and Emergencies, which is part of Russia’s Emergencies Ministry.
Judging from the contents of the new protocols, it appears EMERCOM is preparing for the seemingly unthinkable:
To calculate the possible irrecoverable losses among the population, the document introduces the concept of “the degree of destruction of the city.”
The authors of the document proceed from the assumption that the population will die from conventional means of destruction, therefore, the maximum losses among the unprotected population, in which the degree of defeat is taken as one, will be 30%. In shelters, 5% of the city's inhabitants will die, in the simplest shelters—up to 10%. […]
The new national standard deals with the loss of many thousands of civilians—not about dozens, not hundreds, but about THOUSANDS. In Appendix A to the standard it is written in this way: here is an example of how much manpower and resources will be required to bury “1000 dead within 3 days.”
While the mass burial instructions are geared toward wartime logistics, the same cannot be said of the mass evacuation law. The evacuation legislation—amendments to a 1994 law—was first introduced a year ago and aimed to broaden EMERCOM’s powers.
As TASS reported, before Putin signed the bill, “mandatory evacuation was possible only in two cases: the beginning of a counter-terrorist operation and in a state of emergency.”
There have been some interesting commentaries about what these new evacuation rules could be used for. You can read some crowd-sourced analysis here and here.
But to summarize one theory: the ability to broadly interpret something as being a danger to the “life and health” of Russian citizens opens the door to serious abuses of power.
On the other hand, it’s almost surprising such legislation wasn’t already on the books.
With curiously timed military tensions between Ukraine (NATO) and Russia, as well as the ongoing global war for “public health,” it’s easy to imagine scenarios where mass graves or government-ordered evacuations come into play.
Time will tell.
Good topic to cover, Edward! From what I read and listened to on this subject, two main things in particular upset Russians about the new mandatory evacuation law:
1. Evacuation can be mandated by the government not only in case of emergency, but also in case of a "threat of emergency". One man aptly illustrated threat of emergency with an anecdote (Russians love their anecdotes and have them for every occasion).
"Woman yells at the man walking down the street from her high floor in apartment building:
- Hey man, I know you are planning to rape me!
- But how could I do it, you are up there on the 9th floor and I'm here on the street?
- That's not a problem, I'll come down!"
2. If mandatory evacuation is declared citizens are obligated to leave their premises unlocked taking with them only their documents and the most basic valuables like a wedding ring etc. It is the "unlocked" part that irritates people in Russia since they know, there will be those who'll stay behind on purpose and will loot their apartments.
Hard to like this. Looks like the pandemic has failed and now war is on the cards. Suggest re-orientating needed to stop that as well.