The Economist Asia Edition - April 14, 2018

48 Europe The EconomistApril 14th 2018

Russia

Foul play

T

HE stench hanging over Voloko-

lamsk, a sleepy town west of Moscow,

stings the nostrils like tiny needles.

Downwind from the nearby Yadrovo

landfill site, the noxious blend of sul-

phur, rot and methane becomes unbear-

able. Last month it sent at least 50 chil-

dren to thehospitalwith respiratory

ailments and rashes, and has brought

thousands onto the streets in protest. In

late March residents physically attacked

the head of the local district. A ten-year-

old girl in a pink hat became the move-

ment’s symbol after making a throat-

slitting gesture towards the regional

governor, Andrei Vorobyov.

As the authorities struggle to snuff out

the smell, unrest has spread. At least half

a dozen districtsin the Moscow region

have seen garbage-related pickets in

recent weeks. Residents have focused

their rage on local officials, such as the

mayor and Mr Vorobyov. They take pains

to present their protests as apolitical.

“What politics?” said Valery Karpinsky, a

self-described “Orthodox monarchist”

dressed in a Russia-branded tracksuit,

during a protest last month. “We came for

the children.” As is often the case in

Russia, the good tsar Vladimir Putin is

seen as part of the solution—if he only

knew what his bad boyars had done.

The Kremlin has duly taken note.

Ecological issues have a history of feed-

ing wider dissent. In the wake of the

Chernobyl disaster, environmental prot-

ests were influential in the late Soviet era.

Protests against the destruction of the

Khimki forest, part of Moscow’s green

belt, were part of a wave of local activism

that preceded the outbreak of huge prot-

ests in the capital in 2011-12.

Dealing with waste has long been a

problem in Russia. But the trouble in

Volokolamsk can in part be traced back to

last summer, when residents near the

Kuchino landfill, one of the Moscow

region’s largest, complained to Mr Putin

during his annual call-in show. Though

regional authorities had hoped to keep

the dump open until they could build

new infrastructure, the president then

and there ordered the landfill closed. So it

was, and rubbish was diverted to other

dumps in the region, including Yadrovo,

pushing them beyond capacity. The can

was kicked down the road; or rather, a

huge heap of cans was. And it will prob-

ably now be booted again.

VOLOKOLAMSK

Residents throughout the Moscow region are raising a stink over landfills

Blame the boyars

R

USSIA attracts conspiracy theories. Just

ask the thousands of Poles who

marched on April 10th, the eighth anniver-

sary of the plane crash near Smolensk, Rus-

sia, that killed Lech Kaczynski, then Po-

land’s president, and 95 other passengers.

As always, the annual commemoration

(there are smaller monthly ones) began

with mass at Warsaw’s cathedral, and end-

ed with a speech by Mr Kaczynski’s twin

brother Jaroslaw, head of the populist Law

and Justice (PiS) party and Poland’s de fac-

to leader. He promised that Poles would

soon know the truth about how their presi-

dent died. Mr Kaczynski and his party have

long implied thatRussia downed the plane

on purpose.

There has never been much evidence

for this. The plane fell short of the runway

in heavy fog. Investigations by Russian and

Polish authorities blamed the weather,

poor airport maintenance and human er-

ror. Yet Mr Kaczynski and his allies hinted

that it was an assassination. In recent years

PiShas even alleged collusion by Donald

Tusk, Mr Kaczynski’s political nemesis,

who was prime minister atthe time and is

now president of the European Council.

Hardly anyone outside Poland’s ruling

party believes the Smolensk conspiracy

theories. But Russia also faces more credi-

ble allegations of skulduggery, notably the

attempted murder in Britain on March 6th

of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. In

this case, the most far-fetched theories are

those that absolve Russia.

The evidence points to Moscow. Mr

Skripal is a former Russian spy who was

exposed as a double agent. The nerve toxin

that poisoned him, novichok, was devel-

oped by the Soviet Union in the 1970s. Rus-

sia has a track record: in London in 2006 its

agents assassinated Alexander Litvinenko,

another ex-spy, by slipping polonium into

his tea. Britain’s allies, convinced that Rus-

sia is the onlyplausible suspect, have ex-

pelled 160 Russian spies and diplomats.

In response, Russia has thrown up flim-

sy alternative explanations. Its state-con-

trolled press has suggested that the novi-

chok might have come from Kazakhstan, or

that it could have been obtained by the ma-

fia or Ukraine. With breathtaking chutz-

pah, the Russian embassy in London casti-

gated Britain for failing to protect Russian

citizens on its soil—citing Mr Litvinenko’s

death. The Kremlin settled on the story

that the British poisoned Mr Skripal them-

selves, to malign Russia ahead of its presi-

dential election last month.

These theories have not convinced

many Europeans, but they have sown

doubt. Fringe partiessympatheticto Russia

warn of a plot to restart the cold war. (“I

have a feeling something else is behind

this,” said Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s

National Front.) After Boris Johnson, Brit-

ain’s foreign secretary, got embroiled in a

row over where the evidence came from,

the misgivings spread. Several officials in

Germany’s Social Democratic Party

warned that the measures against Russia

outpaced the proof. On social media, scep-

tics wondered why Russia would take the

risk—the logic used by Dmitry Kiselev, a

Kremlin TV propagandist, who opined last

month that since “only Britain stands to

benefit”, it must be to blame.

It is a common observation that over-

use of the cui bono?(“who benefits?”) style

of thinking leads to conspiracy theories.

They appeal strongly to people who desire

to feel special, according to research by Ro-

land Imhoff, a German social psychologist.

Joseph Uscinski, an American political sci-

entist, finds that they are popular among

groups that lose political contests, and may

disappear when they win.

That could help explain why, in PiS’s

third year in power, interest in Smolensk

theories remains marginal. Just 17% of

Poles believe the crash was caused by an

explosion, whereas 55% do not, according

to a poll this week. Antoni Macierewicz,

the government’s most ardent Smolensk-

explosion believer, was sacked as defence

minister in January. A report he commis-

sioned has been delayed. Mr Kaczynski

has ended the monthly Smolensk rallies.

But the annual one will continue, and he

vows to find the “real” killer. 7

Conspiracy theories

Flights of

imagination

WARSAW

From Smolensk to Salisbury