As a result of adjacent forest fires, which the national forestry service claims were made worse by careless local officials who were afraid to reveal their real scope to Vladimir Putin, thick haze covered Moscow on Thursday.
According to the emergencies ministry, hundreds of firemen were fighting the fires in the Ryazan area, around 155 miles southeast of Moscow.
State media said that the Federal Forestry Agency accused local officials of downplaying the size of the fires and delaying an effective response, while the pollution is made worse by some firemen being sent to the conflict in Ukraine.
According to the agency, “the forestry authorities of the Ryazan region and its natural reserves let the situation with the forest fires lapse and covered its actual extent.”
Governor of the area Pavel Malkov said on Wednesday that the flames had affected more than 1,980 acres.
However, the global environmental organisation Greenpeace estimated that there were over 8,100 acres.
“There is a strong likelihood that human activity started the flames.” Additionally, the prolonged heat and dryness are making it easier for the fire to spread, according to a statement released by Greenpeace on Wednesday.
With temperatures reaching 25 degrees Celsius for many weeks, Moscow and the surrounding areas have had minimal rain. The next few days are predicted to witness an increase in temperature.
The flames have become worse because of strong winds.
The Russian capital was covered in a heavy veil of foul pollution as temperatures hovered above 30C.
Other famous buildings including St. Basil’s Cathedral were obscured by smoke.
Officials in Moscow are quickly dispatching more firefighters to the out-of-control forest fires in the Ryazan area, southeast of the capital.
In the areas of Vladimir, Ivanovo, and Nizhny Novgorod, there are also fires raging.
According to Greenpeace, the region was previously impacted by significant fires in 2010, which led to weeks of choking smoke in Moscow.
The group issued a warning that while there are numerous fires in Russia each year, they seldom get the same attention as those that harm the nation’s capital.
Greenpeace’s Kosacheva said that “hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest (burn) and people in rural communities are living in pollution for months.”
Because of the “extreme heat and dryness,” Greenpeace described the situation as terrible.
Environmentalists claim that local authorities often minimise the size of flames because they are worried about being held accountable by the Kremlin, despite the fact that they lack the capacity to put out the fires.
The greatest smoke in Moscow in at least 12 years is now being caused by fires that might have been put out.
Another issue is the redeployment of several important firemen to Ukraine.
Officials from the Ryazan area were specifically accused by the Federal Forestry Agency for “concealing” the size of the forest fires until it was too late.
In Moscow, which has 15 million residents, parents were instructed to severely restrict their children’s time spent on the playground. They were also advised to wear masks.
Large-scale flames have recently ravaged Russia’s enormous area, especially in Siberia, the Arctic, and the Far East.
Low rainfall and heat waves that scientists have connected to climate change make the more frequent fires worse.
These flames produce enormous poisonous smoke plumes every summer that engulf towns and cities hundreds of kilometres distant.
As a consequence of the peat bog fires that engulfed Moscow in July 2010, there was an extraordinary rise in respiratory illnesses and fatalities.