Last week, Spiegel ran a photo gallery, "Russia in Flames", and an article recapping German press pointing the finger at Putin's "overcentralization of power" being to blame for the disaster. This week, Putin responded as only Putin can.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:
"Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin has been presenting himself as the country's top fire fighter and rebuilder. He is traveling to the areas most affected by the fires, shaking fire fighters by the hand, trudging through the burned-out forests, speaking with victims and encouraging volunteers."
"Yet, in the eyes of many critics the natural disaster has laid bare the weaknesses of a system that Putin established during his eight years as president. He curtailed the regions' autonomy, and built a pyramid of power, in which responsibility was always delegated upwards. The measure by which the governors and regional leaders were to be judged was not efficiency but loyalty -- those who displayed enough of this quality were given the freedom to pursue their own private business affairs and did not have to fear an opposition or a critical press, because their freedoms had been increasingly curtailed by Putin."
The photo gallery wasn't any kinder.
The country's forest service has also been all but dismantled. The 70,000 forest rangers who might have been registered the fires and even been able to put them out, had all been let go.
With a strong Kremlin, and the world's strongest strongman leader, who needs 70,000 forest rangers? RIA Novosti reports how two wildfires were put out:
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Tuesday took part in extinguishing forest fires in Ryazan Province on board an amphibious firefighting airplane.
The Russian head of government was the co-pilot for half an hour aboard a Be-200 plane scooping up water from the nearby Oka River and dumping it on raging forest fires some 200 kilometers southeast of Moscow.
He dumped approximately 12 tons of water on each of two fires, extinguishing both completely.
We know George Bush was a pilot because we saw him in a flight suit. We know Putin is a pilot because he doesn't let us forget:
Putin puts out two wildfires in central Russia
America's citizens ask "What can he really do?" as the President gets flown over a disaster on the way back from vacation, or walks the beach with local response. In Russia, the boss does it himself.
On the other hand, maybe Putin should tend his political fires — perhaps to his chagrin, the Russian press concludes:
Putin's stunt comes as polls show waning public support for Russia's president and prime minister.
Respected Russian sociologist Leonty Byzov told Vedomosti business daily Putin and Medvedev's ratings could drop to 40% in the next six months. He said there was a growing fatigue surrounding Putin's popularity and that if the government's poor response to the wildfire crisis is taken into account, the two leaders' ratings would decrease dramatically.
Or, he could play sports. That always works.