Destroyed Hospitals, Disrupted Supplies, Unpaid Salaries – the New Norm in russia’s Provinces

Social infrastructure in rural russia has collapsed – medicine shortages, unpaid salaries, and disruptions in the supply of essential goods have resulted from the systemic redistribution of resources in favor of the war against Ukraine.

Cancer patients in the Khabarovsk and Primorsky Territories have been left without access to PET and CT scans – key methods for diagnosing tumors and metastases. Due to a lack of medicines and broken radiation therapy equipment, patients are being sent to Novosibirsk or moscow, but even in their own regions, patients have to wait up to two months for an appointment. There is no money for repairs or new equipment.

The situation is similar at industrial enterprises. In Primorye, workers at the GRES (State District Power Plant – Transl.) are staying overnight at the plant and threatening to commit suicide over unpaid wages. In Irkutsk region, teachers have not received incentive payments for a year, and their December salaries are at risk. In Yakutia, payments to firefighters and rescuers are being delayed, and they are being advised to take unpaid leave to save money. In Kemerovo region, mines are idle due to lack of funding.

Problems with food and medicine supplies have spread across the north of the country. The state-owned “Arctic Trade and Logistics Company” could not deliver food to remote areas of Yakutia due to a lack of funds. In Kamchatka and Chukotka, interruptions in medication supply last for months. In the village of Ust-Belaya in Chukotka, children in the boarding school have been infected with pediculosis, but there are no medicines available – they are being advised to use “folk remedies” to treat it. In the village of Snezhnoye, where children are supposed to attend school, there is no school, and a paramedic visits only once in a few months.

Despite this, the authorities regularly report on “aid” to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine: the Far East regions report on having restored more than 1,000 social facilities in the so-called “dpr”. In russia itself, the social system is deteriorating, while resources are being directed toward maintaining the war, leaving citizens without elementary means of life.