>

Thanks for reminding me of a fantastic FANTASTIC miniseries
It's great that whenever these fires happen you never know if it was just Ukrainian Partisans, Anti-Putin Russians, people trying to avoid conscription, or just drunken soldiers being idiots. >

I think it's just lack of basic safety standards (very common in Russia). Looks like they were cooking inside the tent and a spark set it on fire. >

A spark burning down a tent is one thing, but that one tent fire burning the whole camp? Thats some high level incompetence. >

Depends on the material of the tents, distance from each other, and wind. >

And whether that was a bucket of water or vodka >

Brave of you to assume a bucket of vodka would remain undrunk in a camp full of bored, conscripted Russians who want to forget that they've been drafted to fight a pointless war. >

20 litres per year on average. >

Only 20 liters?  They need  more training. >

How to destroy Russia (for dummies) : 
1) Give soldiers copious amounts of vodka >

How to start riots and civil war in Russia?
2) Take away everyone's copious amounts of vodka >

Lenin banned industrial vodka production for the harm it was doing to the population. Stalin resumed it, because the hole it left in the urban economy crippled the budget.
Fixing that sort of alcoholism is hard. It's hard as an individual to shake it, but when it ensnares an entire demographic?
It takes several generations.
That's if your government cares about having healthy citizens, and you could at least say the likes of Lenin wanted to improve the country, they were ideologically driven authoritarians, they had a goal, and thought it was the right one. People like Stalin,  Putin and Xi Jinping can't even be said to have benevolent intentions. Power is their main concern, and those under them are just fuel for the state's fire. >

Yes. Vodka isn't the problem, per se—it's the gigantic vodka factory that is the problem.
Sure, Russians are going to keep making vodka, literally no matter what. But 150 million Russians working in their basements couldn't hope to achieve the same throughput as even just one of these vodka factories.
I have the same opinion about guns in the US. >

Oh, we're no slouches at alcohol factories ourselves. We just haven't gone pro like Russia has. >

You sure about that? They might go tall, but we go wide. After the craft beer explosion, there's a metric shit ton of breweries in the US. >

I am not, but I live in Oregon. During the pandemic a lot of local distilleries put much of their production into hand sanitizer. Pretty sure we have the highest number of craft beer production facilities. We're not Wisconsin, but we pump out some alcohol. >


A tent camp for mobilised Russians has burned down in Orenburg Oblast, Russia, five days after a similar incident took place in Cheremushki, Omsk Oblast.

...

"A fire broke out in the [military] training unit in Nizhnyaya Pavlovka on the morning of 9 January. According to one of the mobilised soldiers, the fire engine on duty had apparently run out of pressure."
The soldiers had to wait for the emergency services to arrive from the city. The mobilised men also said that drunken officers were probably responsible for the fire. Among other things, tents belonging to mobilised men from Samara Oblast were damaged.

...

The report concluded with a reminder that five days ago, a tent camp for mobilised Russians caught fire in Cheremushki, Omsk Oblast. According to the governor, it was a spark from a furnace that caused the fire. >


fire engine on duty had apparently run out of pressure

... some decades ago >

That is not an uncommon problem for rural fire units. They have to self pressurize and that becomes less effective as water levels go down. >


for rural fire units

Sweet summer child. >

Did they store ammunition in a tent nearby? >

Only an amateur military would do that .. I fully expect these professionals to build their barracks out of stacks of ammo crates. They're sturdy. >

It’s only sturdy if the crates aren’t empty >

Russia's military has got to be, without a doubt, the worst military I've ever heard of. >

But you have heard of them >

And I half expected their tanks to be made of wood. >

Nah, all the interesting bits of wood are in Shoigu's collection. >

The mobilised men also said that drunken officers were probably responsible for the fire.
😅😅. >

No doubt the officers will blame the mobiks. The commander will submit a report that only 2 tents were damaged at minimal cost and that they have thousands more tents. The illusion of greatness carries on … >

Like that scene in Generation kill where a soldier hurts his eye and almost burns down his tent using an expresso machine.  The officer writes it up in a way that it makes the men look like heroes instead of morons and his CO asks him to recommend some of the men for medals.