04 June 20
RSN: Harvey Wasserman | Who Will Confront Trump's KKK/Gestapo at the Polls This Fall?
Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News
Wasserman writes: "Now that Trump is sending actual troops into our streets, the shape of his planned coup d'état is becoming ever clearer."
Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News
Wasserman writes: "Now that Trump is sending actual troops into our streets, the shape of his planned coup d'état is becoming ever clearer."
A critical piece will be an outright armed assault on the polling places during this fall’s election.
Trump’s GOP has already raised $20 million for anti-democracy lawsuits. While claiming the fall election will be “rigged,” Trump’s minions say they’ll raise a 50,000-strong vigilante army to terrorize “suspicious” (i.e., young, non-white, non-millionaire) voters at the polls.
Here’s the premise:
On November 3, thousands of KKK/Gestapo-style “Trump volunteers” will swarm over the usual long lines in critical swing state/minority-heavy precincts. We’ve seen their neo-Nazi ilk in Charlottesville, among the Proud Boys, etc.
Many will be armed and dressed in military garb. Lacking legal credentials, but likely at gunpoint, they’ll demand ID and other “proof” of voter qualifications.
Their purpose will be to drive away potential anti-Trump voters and turn the election into chaos.
This country has a long history of organized, violent assault at the polls. In the 1800s, countless black citizens were murdered on election day or just prior because they intended to vote. They were routinely shot or lynched by the Ku Klux Klan and other White Supremacist terrorists.
Historians often portray the slaughter as random racism. But KKK terror/lynching has been very political, primarily aimed to undermine the black community’s potential power.
Team Trump clearly intends to do it again this fall.
There’s been an early warning. Last year the gerrymandered Ohio Legislature passed a $1 billion bailout for two dying nuke reactors on Lake Erie. Outraged opponents petitioned for a statewide referendum to overturn the hated rip-off.
Polls showed a popular vote would bury the bailout while arousing a strong left constituency for the 2020 election.
But signature gatherers working to get the issue on the ballot were physically assaulted by “blockers” – Trump terrorists. With no police protection, the campaign failed.
In Ohio 2004, Republican operatives, with state approval, invaded African-American precincts to terrorize voters.
This year, expect much worse. Trump’s GOP will deploy trained, highly-paid professionals to turn the election to chaos. Except where there may be students, they will NOT be assaulting white precincts.
Trump screams at Vote by Mail (except in red states, and when he and his family themselves vote). Any ballot cast by anyone who is not a white-millionaire-Republican is considered “fraudulent.”
GOP operatives are now denying mail-in ballots to citizens of youth and color. Where election-day lines develop, Trump’s thugs (along with the Coronavirus) will prey. It will be a very public lynching.
To fight back, we must restore to the voter rolls the 16 million citizens Trump has already purged. They must be reached, restored, and made ready to vote.
We must also guarantee that Vote by Mail functions properly.
All eligible voters must get a ballot well before election day. They should be mailed or walked into election centers far before November 3rd. Election monitors must see that the ballots are properly checked in and protected.
For voters coming in person to the polls, there must be sufficient numbers of paper ballots available. Election protectors must be there to guard both the voters and the vote counters.
Trained in nonviolence, election protectors need to seriously outnumber Trump’s KKK/Gestapo and be willing to stare down the barrels of their guns.
Throughout history, in the US and world, countless citizens have been assaulted and murdered for far less than the nonviolent eviction of a demented dictator.
There are barely five months until election day. There is nothing Trump won’t do to become president for life.
Troops are already in the streets. The coup is in progress. The fall election must be protected.
What will you do about it?
The conclusion to Harvey Wasserman’s People’s Spiral of US History awaits Trump’s departure. Wasserman convenes the National COVID-19 Emergency Election Protection Zoom every Monday; contact him via www.solartopia.org.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
William Barr Seeks to Subdue DC Protests by 'Flooding the Zone' With Federal Firepower
Devlin Barrett, The Washington Post
Barrett writes: "From an FBI command center in Washington's Chinatown neighborhood, Attorney General William P. Barr has orchestrated a stunning show of force on the streets of the nation's capital."
Devlin Barrett, The Washington Post
Barrett writes: "From an FBI command center in Washington's Chinatown neighborhood, Attorney General William P. Barr has orchestrated a stunning show of force on the streets of the nation's capital."
rom an FBI command center in Washington’s Chinatown neighborhood, Attorney General William P. Barr has orchestrated a stunning show of force on the streets of the nation’s capital — a battalion of federal agents, troops and police designed to restore order, but one that critics say carries grim parallels to heavy-handed foreign regimes.
Barr was tapped by President Trump to direct the national response to protests and riots over police misconduct since the police-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The attorney general has focused much of his attention on the District, where unrest and arrests swelled over the weekend before a jarring clash Monday to clear peaceful protesters from outside the White House — an order Barr issued personally. By Tuesday night, as he sat in the FBI command center until nearly midnight, the city’s mood seemed to have calmed.
One Justice Department official said Barr’s strategy is to “flood the zone” by putting “the maximum amount of law enforcement out on the street. . . . The peacefulness is in large part due to the large law enforcement presence.” Like others, this official spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.
While large protests Tuesday night included thousands of people breaking the city’s curfew, Barr and his advisers reason that as long as such activities are peaceful, they are not going to be challenged by federal enforcers.
Still, while Barr may be restoring order, his outsize role in the administration has made many uncomfortable. Monday’s episode outside the White House has proven especially galling for some, including Trump’s former defense secretary, Jim Mattis, who on Wednesday issued a pointed rebuke.
“We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square,” the retired general wrote. “We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.”
The display of federal might — in the District and other restive cities where protests have turned destructive — includes military vehicles at many intersections, helicopter flyovers, federal law enforcement agents assigned to patrol and investigate possible crimes, street closures and checkpoints. Troubling to some has been the presence of personnel, some heavily armed, clad in tactical attire bearing no identifiable insignia. The Justice Department itself has in the past criticized such a lack of transparency, saying it foments mistrust.
On the night he took charge of the effort, Barr walked the streets to see for himself how personnel were deployed.
Some law enforcement experts contend the dramatic scenes are counterproductive in the long run, affirming the very criticism leveled by protesters — that police and government officials treat citizens unjustly.
“The heavy hand is a smack in the face, and the danger is that it may make things worse,” said Dennis Kenney, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York with expertise in police response to protests. “It really does communicate something about where those who are in charge think our society sits right now. We’re in the process of demonstrating to the people who are out in the streets that they are right to be there.”
Kenney said he was struck by the president’s walk Monday to a church near the White House, under a phalanx of armed guards. It reminded him of when he advised a government minister in Yemen that he should use a soft touch on protests. The minister refused and, in six months, could not safely travel anywhere beyond his home and his office.
The Justice Department official said such criticism was unwarranted. “What would be the alternative, letting people burn down the city?” the official asked. “The force is necessary to restore order and civility so people can go ahead with their lives because, prior to this, things were really getting out of hand. This only benefits everyone.”
Barr has said the government must “dominate” the streets to restore order and put an end to the looting, rioting and vandalism that has marred Washington, New York, Minneapolis and elsewhere.
From the FBI command center, the attorney general coordinates with the Pentagon and a variety of federal agencies fanned out across the capital. Tennessee and Florida announced Wednesday they were sending National Guard troops to the city to further beef up those efforts. Barr has also ordered agents with the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshals and the Bureau of Prisons to help protect the city.
Aides said Barr has also logged hours at FBI headquarters, overseeing the national response efforts, focused not just on the broad efforts but the minutiae of the government response.
Justice Department officials took the sharp drop in arrests Tuesday night as a sign that the strategy is working. While the crowds of protesters were as large or larger than previous nights, there was far less property destruction or violence compared with previous evenings.
A second Justice Department official said Wednesday that that there has been “a tremendous amount of restraint” shown by D.C. police and the other law enforcement agencies. The official said that that so far, none of those arrested have been accused of being part of extremist groups, but investigators are still examining the backgrounds of some and scrutinizing social media posts for evidence of anyone who may be organizing, orchestrating or encouraging violence amid the protests.
“We can exploit phones, data communications to see if there is a coordinated command and control. That’s what we’re looking for,” the official said.
A central focus in Barr’s effort is steering criminal cases into the federal system, where suspects are likely to face stiffer prison sentences. As part of that push, two Minnesota men were charged Tuesday with firebombing a local court office building.
According to a criminal complaint, Garrett Patrick Ziegler, 24, and Fornandous Cortez Henderson, 32, were charged with arson and possession of molotov cocktails after detectives in Apple Valley, Minn., found a set of car keys near the crime scene that led them to the suspects.
The case was turned over to federal prosecutors and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
As in the Minnesota case, ATF is helping local police departments with arson investigations related to the unrest, while other agents are helping patrol public spaces. Other federal agencies are also taking up cases involving violence or vandalism related to the protests. About a dozen people have been charged federally in such cases, and scores more are under investigation, according to officials.
On Wednesday evening, authorities announced the arrest of three men in Las Vegas on charges of conspiring to cause destruction at protests in that city. Federal authorities said the three men identified with the “boogaloo” movement, a far-right extremist ideology that seeks to spark a civil war.
The DEA has received special permission to go beyond its standard legal mandate of investigating drug-related crimes to also investigate crimes related to the protests, according to an internal document first reported by BuzzFeed News.
The Justice Department authorization, which lasts for 14 days, allows the DEA to conduct “covert surveillance” and share intelligence with state and local officials, as well as patrol public places and make arrests for non-drug crimes as officials see fit. A DEA spokeswoman declined to comment.
It is unusual for federal agents to engage in such duties, but they have been pressed into service by Barr, who has called the public vandalism and violence surrounding the protests “domestic terrorism.”
Some of the federal agents deployed around Washington have been wearing military-style tactical gear with no markings to indicate their names or the agencies for which they work. Six years ago, the Justice Department criticized the Ferguson, Mo., police department for allowing its officers to work without wearing nameplates.
“Officers wearing name plates while in uniform is a basic component of transparency and accountability,” the Justice Department’s civil rights division wrote at the time. “It is a near-universal requirement of sound policing practices. . . . Allowing officers to remain anonymous when they interact with the public contributes to mistrust and undermines accountability.”
A Justice Department official said there has been no instruction for federal agents to not identify themselves, but the mobilization happened so quickly, “they’re using the gear that’s available. . . . There is so much surveillance that’s going on that I feel confident nothing is going to happen here that isn’t video recorded.”
Kenney, the policing expert, said federal law enforcement agents are a poor fit for what should be the twin goals of government: using National Guard troops to protect the protesters and using police in reserve to pursue any lawbreakers.
“What the DEA and all the other federal law enforcement agencies are going to contribute is totally beyond me,” said Kenney. “They’re of little value and should be cleared out.”
Democrats have also criticized Barr’s handling of the crisis, particularly the decision to clear Lafayette Square of protesters just before the president’s walk to get his photo taken outside a church. On Wednesday, four senior House Democrats wrote to Barr seeking answers about that decision and declaring that “the use of federal personnel to prevent American citizens from exercising their Constitutional right to peaceably assemble represents a direct threat to our democracy.”
The FBI’s Washington Field Office, which holds the command center where Barr oversees the government response, issued a statement saying it “respects the rights of individuals to peacefully exercise their First Amendment rights. We are working actively and closely with our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners and are committed to apprehending violent instigators who are exploiting legitimate, peaceful protests and engaging in violations of federal law.”
The attorney general has also instructed the FBI’s joint terrorism task forces to assist in the efforts. Officials said agents in the JTTFs have been assigned to gather video and photo evidence of possible lawbreakers, as well as take tips from local police departments about particular suspects or cases. One official said the JTTFs’ work on identifying criminal activity related to the protests does not mean the agency has changed its rules for how it uses surveillance powers toward Americans — the legal limitations around national security intelligence authorities still apply, the official said.
The government’s show of force has not been welcome or necessary everywhere. As part of the Justice Department effort, Barr ordered special riot control teams from the Bureau of Prisons to deploy in Washington and Miami, where the situation has been relatively calm. Another law enforcement official said the team had not been needed there and would depart.
Police stand by as demonstrations continue against the murder of George Floyd on June 1, 2020 in the Brooklyn, N.Y. (photo: Spencer Platt/Getty)
White House and NYPD Falsely Claim 'Antifa' Placed Bricks and Weapons at Protest Sites
The Week
Excerpt: "The White House just tried and failed to pin violence on its enemy of choice."
READ MORE
The Week
Excerpt: "The White House just tried and failed to pin violence on its enemy of choice."
READ MORE
AP video journalist Robert Bumsted reminds police officers that journalists are 'essential workers.' (photo: Wong Maye-E/AP)
Journalists Wage Legal Fights After Facing Attacks From Police During Protests
David Bauder, Associated Press
Bauder writes: "Journalists alarmed by dozens of incidents where reporters were shot at, manhandled, gassed or arrested while covering demonstrations touched off by the death of Minnesota man George Floyd are fighting back legally."
David Bauder, Associated Press
Bauder writes: "Journalists alarmed by dozens of incidents where reporters were shot at, manhandled, gassed or arrested while covering demonstrations touched off by the death of Minnesota man George Floyd are fighting back legally."
A freelance journalist, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the city of Minneapolis, and dozens of news organizations urged Minnesota authorities to let journalists work unimpeded.
Protests have spread across the country following Floyd’s death last week after a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes.
One organization has logged more than 230 incidents targeting journalists since Floyd’s death. The Associated Press captured film of New York police shoving and swearing at two of its journalists while documenting arrests Tuesday night after a curfew went into effect. Journalists covering the story are exempt from the curfew.
“The press is under assault in our country,” freelance photographer Jared Goyette said in the ACLU lawsuit.
Goyette was shot in the face last Wednesday by police using rubber bullets, according to the complaint. The lawsuit documents charges by more than 30 people who were set upon by authorities despite clearly identifying themselves as working journalists.
Freelance journalist Linda Tirado was blinded in one eye after being shot in the face. MSNBC’s Ali Velshi was fired upon after identifying himself as a journalist and being told, “we don’t care.” Vice magazine’s Michael Adams was thrown to the ground by police and pepper sprayed from inches away, the complaint said.
Photographer Lucas Jackson, who was hit by pepper spray and ammunition, told lawyers that “I’ve been hit because I’ve been in the wrong place before. I’ve never been aimed at so deliberately so many times while I was avoiding it.”
In response to the lawsuit, Minneapolis City Attorney Erik Nilsson said: “We will review the allegations and take them seriously. We continue to support the First Amendment rights of everyone in Minneapolis.”
Many of the incidents came after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, following last Friday’s arrest and immediate release of CNN reporter Omar Jimenez, said at a news conference that “we have got to ensure that there is a safe spot for journalism to tell this story.”
Walz’s remarks “have proven toothless,” the ACLU said.
Police on the street clearly haven’t gotten the message, and they’re poorly trained in the rights of the media to bear witness, even when there is a curfew, said Jane Kirtley, director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that there’s a bad attitude, not just bad training, given relentless criticism of the press by President Donald Trump, she said.
“If you put a gun in the hand of somebody and tell them they’re the enemy, what’s going to happen?” Kirtley said.
Since Floyd’s death, there have been 233 reported incidents of assault, arrests or equipment damage against the press, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. Fifty-five of them have been in Minnesota, far more than any other state.
Nationally, there were 34 reported assaults against a reporter in 2019 — and 153 in the last three days, the organization said.
The number of incidents is “beyond the pale” in a free society, said Gabe Rottman, lawyer for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, on Wednesday. The committee sent a letter to Minnesota officials urging immediate steps be taken to let the journalists work safely. There hasn’t been a response, Rottman said.
More than 100 news organizations signed on in support of the letter, including ABC, CNN, The New York Times, Washington Post, Atlantic, Vox, Politico, Mother Jones, Fox News Channel, CBS, NBC and The Associated Press.
“We should not be silent,” said former NBC News executive Bill Wheatley. “We play a role in the democracy and we shouldn’t be under attack by people who should be enforcing the laws of society.”
He urged reporters to be vigilant watching out for their own safety. Lighter, more mobile equipment gives journalists the chance to move swiftly around the scenes of protests.
“I have seen reporters get between police lines and demonstrators,” he said, “and that’s not a good place to be.”
New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio on Wednesday called for an investigation of police for roughing up journalists, including an incident involving video journalist Robert Bumsted and photographer Maye-E Wong of the AP. While documenting police efforts to enforce the curfew in lower Manhattan Tuesday night, they were shoved, cursed at and told to go home by officers.
Man walks past a statue of Charles Linn, who was in the Confederate Navy, in Birmingham, Alabama. (photo: Jay Reeves/AP)
Confederate Monuments Coming Down Around South Amid Protests
Jay Reeves, Associated Press
Reeves writes: "Sarah Collins Rudolph thought she'd never see what happened in her hometown: Prompted by protests, the city removed a 115-year-old Confederate monument near where her sister and three other black girls died in a racist church bombing in 1963."
Jay Reeves, Associated Press
Reeves writes: "Sarah Collins Rudolph thought she'd never see what happened in her hometown: Prompted by protests, the city removed a 115-year-old Confederate monument near where her sister and three other black girls died in a racist church bombing in 1963."
EXCERPTS:
A wave of Confederate memorial removals that began after a white supremacist killed nine black people at a Bible study in a church in South Carolina in 2015 is again rolling, with more relics of the Old South being removed from public view after the killing of George Floyd by police in Minnesota.
In Birmingham, where Rudolph lives, the graffiti-covered, pocked base of a massive Confederate monument was all that remained Tuesday after crews dismantled the towering obelisk and trucked it away in pieces overnight. Other symbols came down elsewhere, leaving an empty pedestal in Virginia and a bare flagpole in Florida.
Rudolph, whose sister Addie Mae Collins died in the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church, had to see the sight for herself. She lowered a protective face mask to take in the absence of an edifice she long considered a symbol of oppression.
In Alexandria, Virginia, it was the United Daughters of the Confederacy that took action early Tuesday, removing the statue of a soldier gazing south from Old Town since 1889. And outside Tampa, Florida, a Sons of Confederate Veterans chapter lowered a huge Confederate battle flag that has long been flown in view of two interstate highways.
Birmingham took down the obelisk a day after protesters tried to remove the monument themselves, during one of the many nationwide protests. Crews were preparing to finish the job by pulling up the base.
The monument had been the subject of a protracted court battle between the city and state, which passed a law to protect Confederate icons after rebel monuments were challenged and removed following the killings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the city of Birmingham, seeking to fine the city $25,000 for violating the state law. Mayor Randall Woodfin said earlier this week that the fine was more affordable than the cost of continued unrest in the city. Online fundraising drives have raised more than enough money to pay the fine.
The state lawsuit does not specifically ask Birmingham to restore the monument.
Work to remove the monument began Monday, which was Alabama's holiday honoring Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who was sworn in Montgomery. There, on the same day, someone knocked over a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee outside a mostly black high school named for him.
Four people were arrested on criminal mischief charges, and the toppled statue was removed.
In Alexandria, a city spokesman said the United Daughters of the Confederacy informed the city on Monday that it would remove the statue, and the city’s only role was to provide traffic support. By morning, the pedestal was all that was left. City officials were not told where the statue was taken.
Titled “Appomattox,” it depicts a solitary Confederate soldier, his head bowed slightly. In 1890, a state law was passed barring local officials from ever removing it. That law was repealed earlier this year.
Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson tweeted photos of the removal on Tuesday, saying “Alexandria, like all great cities, is constantly changing and evolving.”
In Birmingham, Rudolph saw the removal of the monument as unfinished business from decades ago. The more than 50-foot-tall (15-meter-tall) memorial to Confederate soldiers and sailors was located just blocks from the church where Rudolph was badly injured and her sister died when a bomb went off on a Sunday morning decades ago.
“The things that we were fighting for in the ‘60s aren't solved yet,” said Rudolph, who testified against Ku Klux Klansmen convicted in the bombing. “We shouldn't be treated the way they treat us.”
Navajo Nation Police Officer Carolyn Tallsalt looks out at dried sagebrush where her uncle George Billy was buried in April at the Tuba City Community Cemetery in Arizona. (photo: Brian van der Brug/LA Times)
She's Patrolled the Navajo Nation for Nearly 20 Years. Nothing Prepared Her for the COVID-19 Outbreak
Kurtis Lee, Los Angeles Times
Lee writes: "The Navajo Nation patrol car pulled up to the jail near the center of town and Officer Carolyn Tallsalt stepped out."
Kurtis Lee, Los Angeles Times
Lee writes: "The Navajo Nation patrol car pulled up to the jail near the center of town and Officer Carolyn Tallsalt stepped out."
EXCERPT:
Since mid-March, when the novel coronavirus began to spread like a brush fire on the dry, remote 27,000-square-mile reservation, daily patrols for the nearly 200 Navajo Nation officers have transformed into an exhausting mix of stress and overwhelming sadness.
Here on the Navajo Nation — spanning portions of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah — nearly everyone knows at least one victim of the deadly virus.
So far, about 5,400 people have tested positive and nearly 250 people have died from COVID-19 on a reservation with roughly 175,000 residents. The infection rate in desolate Kayenta, Ariz., about 75 miles northeast of Tuba City, was recently higher than some areas of hard-hit New York City.
Many on the reservation, an area larger than West Virginia with only four inpatient hospitals, lack running water, electricity or consistent Internet access, making it difficult to get news updates about the virus or practice the hand-washing regimen recommended to ward off infection.
Last month, the Navajo Nation received roughly $600 million from the $2-trillion stimulus bill passed by Congress; some of that money, officials here say, will go toward improving water infrastructure.
One possible reason for the high rate of cases, said Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez, is that nearly 15% of the total population has been tested for COVID-19.
Still, he said, the numbers are concerning, and he worries that as communities near the reservation — places like Flagstaff, Ariz., and Gallup, N.M. — reopen restaurants and retail shops, the virus could spread even more rapidly.
And that, Nez said, is why he intends to keep in place nightly curfews he implemented in early April on the entire reservation.
“It’s for their safety,” he said, stressing that he’s also asked residents to leave home during the day only for essential trips. “We have to remain vigilant.”
In Tuba City, a town in the western stretch of the Navajo Nation surrounded by red-rock desert, the Regional Health Care Center has seen a surge in patients in recent months, at times operating at capacity.
Many in this onetime hub of uranium mining have underlying health issues, including a high incidence of cancer. That puts them at a higher risk, regardless of their age, for getting seriously sick or dying from complications of the coronavirus.
Local officials say that’s why enforcing the curfew is so crucial. For weeks there has been a curfew from 8 p.m. until 5 a.m. and on weekends a complete lockdown from Friday until Monday. So far, Tallsalt said, a vast majority of people have respected the nightly curfew — a mandate she hopes to see remain into the foreseeable future.
“There is a fear here,” she said, “and rarely have I caught people breaking the law when it comes to curfew.”
Tallsalt, who grew up here and has been an officer since 2003, said none of the tragedies she has witnessed throughout her career — homicides, car accidents, domestic violence — prepared her for the devastation wrought by COVID-19.
About 20,000 tonnes of diesel fuel has spilled into the Ambarnaya River outside Norilsk. (photo: Getty)
Russia Orders State of Emergency After Huge Fuel Spill Inside Arctic Circle
Guardian UK
Excerpt: "Vladimir Putin has ordered a state of emergency after 20,000 tonnes of diesel fuel spilled into a river inside the Arctic Circle."
Guardian UK
Excerpt: "Vladimir Putin has ordered a state of emergency after 20,000 tonnes of diesel fuel spilled into a river inside the Arctic Circle."
President lambasts power plant owner ‘for not reporting earlier’ incident bigger than Kerch spill
The spill occurred when a fuel reservoir at a power plant near the city of Norilsk collapsed on Friday.
The plant is operated by a division of Nornickel, whose factories in the area have made the city one of the most heavily polluted places on Earth.
During a video conference on Wednesday that was broadcasted on television, Putin lambasted the head of the Nornickel subsidiary that owns the power plant, NTEK, after officials said the company failed to report the incident.
“Why did government agencies only find out about this two days after the fact? Are we going to learn about emergency situations from social media? Are you quite healthy over there?” the Russian president told Sergei Lipin, the head of NTEK.
Nornickel said NTEK had reported what happened in a “timely and proper” way.
The governor of the Krasnoyarsk region, where Norilsk is located, told Putin he only learned of the real situation on Sunday after “alarming information appeared in social media”.
Putin said he agreed that a national state of emergency was needed in order to call in more resources for the cleanup effort.
Russia’s investigative committee, which deals with major crimes, announced it had launched three criminal investigations into the accident and detained a power plant employee.
Alexei Knizhnikov of the World Wildlife Fund said the environmental group was the one who alerted cleanup specialists after confirming the accident through its sources. “These are huge volumes,” he said. “It was difficult for them to cover it up.”
The volume of the spill is vastly larger than the 2007 Kerch spill, which involved 5,000 tonnes of oil, Knizhnikov said.
At the time the spill in the Black Sea strait was the largest of its kind for Russia and required intervention of the military and hundreds of volunteers.
Knizhnikov said diesel fuel is lighter than oil, so it was likely to evaporate rather than sink but was also “more toxic to clean up”.
The Ambarnaya River that bore the brunt of the spill will be difficult to clean up because it is too shallow to use barges and the remote location has no roads, officials told Putin.
Russia’s environment minister, Dmitry Kobylkin, said he thought burning the fuel, which some are suggesting, was too risky.
“It’s a very difficult situation. I can’t imagine burning so much fuel in an Arctic territory … such a huge bonfire over such an area will be a big problem.”
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