The wildfire death toll had hit 40 as of last night, as a state of emergency was declared in seven regions, including Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod.  Environmentalists are blaming the catastrophe on government policies, in particular the 2007 cancellation of a woodland-fire control system.  A reported 1,229 people drowned last month, largely in heatwave-and-alcohol incidents.  President Dmitry Medvedev says that a ‘power struggle‘ with Vladimir Putin for the presidential role in 2012 ‘would be bad for Russia‘.  The LA Times analyzes recent news reports on the wildfires, concluding that Putin is gearing up to be president once again, quoting a Kremlin expert: ‘It is quite obvious that Putin uses these difficult times to show the people who is the strong man in the country, who is the national leader, who is the can-do man‘.