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On 9 April, days after a dam burst caused disastrous flooding in southern Russia, Yulia Navalnya blasted the government’s handling of the crisis on X. “The authorities in our country never seem to be prepared for anything,” the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny wrote in a damning thread. “In winter, they are unprepared for frost and snowstorms, in summer – for fires, and in spring – for floods.” Spring flooding is typical across the Ural region, as the Ural River – Europe’s third longest – fills with snowmelt from the Ural mountains. But the river hit record levels this April w…

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