Putin blames deadly Russian fire on ‘criminal negligence’; thousands rally and demand answers

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Kemerovo early Tuesday as thousands gathered in the Siberian city, demanding answers from their government about a shopping mall fire that killed 64 people, many of them children celebrating the beginning of spring break.

Putin, who met with local officials and visited a hospital treating some of the dozens who were injured, was sharply critical in his remarks, blaming the fire on “criminal negligence, sloppiness.”

He also declared national day of mourning for Wednesday.

The fire at the Winter Cherry shopping and entertainment complex swept through the building quickly Sunday afternoon, a day in which thousands of families and children were enjoying the first weekend of spring break for most Russian schools. An estimated 41 of those killed were children trapped inside a locked movie theater on the fourth floor of the mall, adjacent to the area the fire is believed to have started.

Protesters gather in Moscow following deadly mall fire.

(Pavel Golovkin / AP )

Family members reported that several dozen people are still unaccounted for, and some accused the government was hiding the true scale of the fire’s death toll. Firefighters were finally able to extinguish the last embers of the blaze on Monday.

Putin did not visit demonstrators at Kemerovo’s central square, where thousands angrily allied in front of a statue of Lenin statue. Many were relatives of the victims, including parents who had made desperate phone calls to their children trapped inside the mall’s cinema as it began to fill with smoke.

Protesters pointed the finger at their local government, accusing the mall’s management of disregarding basic fire and safety regulations. Survivors of Sunday’s fire reported that there many fire exits were locked, and the fire alarm did not sound when the flames broke out. Some speculated openly about corruption and criminality.

In one heated exchange shared widely on social media, Sergey Tsivilyev, a vice-governor for the region, accused a demonstrator, Igor Vostrikov, of trying to “make PR out of the tragedy.”

Grabbing a microphone, Vostrikov said the demonstration wasn’t a public relations stunt and that he had lost his three young children, his wife and his sister in the fire. He and other protesters demanded the government address their public’s concern over the blaze.

“We’re not calling for blood,” he shouted. “The children are dead, you can’t give them back. We need justice.”

Tsivilyev later dropped to his knees outside the region’s administrative building and begged the crowd for forgiveness.

Putin looked visibly angry as he sat at a long desk facing regional officials during a televised meeting. Putin, who won a fourth term March 18 in a landslide election, later laid flowers at a makeshift memorial outside the charred remains of the shopping mall.

“What’s happening here?” he said during in a meeting aired on state television channels. “This isn’t war, it’s not an unexpected methane explosion at a coal mine. People came to relax, children. We’re talking about demography and losing so many people.”

The regional governor Aman Tuleyev insisted to Putin that there were only 200 demonstrators in Kemerovo’s central square, and that none were family members of the victims. He blamed the “the opposition” and “local busybodies” for stirring up the protests and told Putin that his “main task” was to stop any unrest in the Siberia city.

“Speculating with lies based on other people’s grief to achieve who knows what aims,” he said. “Actually, we all know what they want.”

Then, in an odd departure, Tuleyev apologized to Putin for the fire.

“Vladimir Vladimirovich, you have personally called me. Thanks again,” Tuleyev said, using the polite form to address Putin. “I’m personally sorry for what happened on our territory.”

On the central square, protesters demanded the resignation of Tuleyev, who has been governor since 1997 of the Kemerovo region, a coal-rich area about 2,200 miles east of Moscow.

Russia’s federal Investigative Committee said they planned to bring formal charges against four people in connection with the fire, including negligent homicide. On Monday, police detained four people, including a security guard who disabled the fire alarm when it was first triggered on Sunday. The others detained were from the shopping mall owner’s management and representative of one of the mall’s tenants.

The public grief and outrage over the fire spread across the country Tuesday. Dozens of cities from Moscow to Russia’s Pacific coast made makeshift memorials to the victims in central city squares. Many laid flowers, stuffed animals and signs reading “Kemerovo, we are with you.” In Moscow, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the capital city cleared space in the central Manezh Square next to the Kremlin walls for memorials.

State television showed crowds of several hundred in St. Petersburg and other cities across the country, including Volgograd and Russia’s Far Eastern regions.

UPDATES:

9:48 a.m.: This article was updated with staff reporting.

This article was originally published at 7:25 a.m.