In russia, There Are Plans at the Legislative Level to Require Drowning People to Self–Rescue Themselves

The state duma of the russian federation is drafting a law that will exempt russians from fines for repairing roads. Currently, if citizens decide to fill a pothole in their yard or repair a section of road on their own and at their own expense – without waiting for municipal workers – they can be fined 5,000–10,000 rubles under Article 12.33 of the “code of administrative offenses”. For legal entities, the penalty is even harsher – a fine of up to 300,000 rubles.

Against the background of rising costs for the war against Ukraine, the government of the rf is cutting funding for road projects, particularly the construction and repair of federal motorways. By order of prime minister mikhail mishustin, spending on the maintenance of the federal road network will be cut by 11 billion rubles this year and by another 20 billion next year. Total funding for road projects over the next six years – which was intended to cover the construction and reconstruction of more than 2,000 km of roads – will be reduced by 100 billion rubles. This means that the wait for repairs may be delayed even further.

Another telling sign is the russian officials’ tendency to manipulate figures. According to last year’s results, the federal road agency reported a 14% increase in the volume of road construction and repair, which amounts to a total of 28,000 km. However, only 220 km of new federal roads were built out of this total. By comparison, China is building new roads at a rate of 750 meters per hour, which amounts to about 26,000 km per year.

Thus, russian lawmakers are ushering in a new era in relations between the state and its citizens. russians are simply being allowed, as a “generous gesture”, to independently perform the functions of government services in areas where the authorities simply “lack” the funds to care for the people. The housing and utilities sector may be next in line for this kind of “self-reliance”. According to experts’ estimates, the massive underfunding and shortage of money for modernizing the housing and utilities infrastructure in the rf already amounts to 4.5 trillion rubles.