While the political regime in Russia is trying to increase its grip over civil society structures, banning international environmental NGOs to work in the country and persecuting regional activists,environmental topics remain to be an important field for the civic groups and activism in the country, even during the war in Ukraine. Local green groups help solve some environmental problems but can also be seen as important for strengthening broken structures of the civil society in the country. The state reacts by oppressing the mostmassive movements and trying to hijack and instrumentalize the agenda.
Environmental and urban activism played a great role in pre-war Russia creating hopes it could become a basis for the country democratic transition. Following the beginning of Russia’s full-scaleinvasion of Ukraine in February 2022, most environmental groups have put their activities on hold, but after a few months, many regional and national environmental campaigns have been reset and new ones appeared.
Why environmental protests remain relevant
There are several reasons for that. Before the war, local environmental protests were often seen and perceived as ‘unpolitical’. Since the beginning of the war, almost all public anti-war statements and protests have become highly dangerous, with more than 1000 people persecuted and more than 300 jailed, according to the repressions watchdog OVD-Info.
However, it seems like there is still some space for protesting other, non-war related issues, in today’s Russia – in many cases, about local environmental problems: air and water pollution, access to environmental information, demolishment of urban parks and further green areas, protection of nature protected areas, waste management (including pollution from landfills or plans to build incinerators) and polluting enterprises.
Concerns about local environmental causes also demonstrate a certain degree of (seeming) normalization of everyday life inmost of Russia, with the war happening “far away”, so that groups with various political opinions in the country (those supporting the actions of the government, internally protesting against it or preferring not to think about the war at all) still need to deal with their daily lives and errands and are being concerned with the immediate environmental situation in the areas they live.
Many of the local campaigns directly tackle corrupted governmental officials or polluting companies, while appealing to the president or federal parliamentarians as representatives of higher authorities for help. Thus, even by the authorities, these campaigns are often being considered ‘authentically’ grass-root, not influenced from abroad, and thus, unpolitical. Sometimes these campaigns are still being oppressed, their leaders pushed away from the region or the country, or persecuted.
Experts of the Environmental-Crisis Group estimate that in 2023 156 new cases of pressure against environmentalists in 36 regions of Russia were registered. “In total, over 174 eco-activists and 29 environmental associations (15 organizations and 14 initiative groups) were subjected to pressure during the year. 32 activists were attacked. 10 new criminal cases were initiated, 5 activists received criminal sentences (1 fine and 4 suspended sentences)”.
All these statistics reflect purely environmental activism and do not include cases when environmental activists got persecuted because of their anti-war or other political activism. Further data from the Important Stories media says that almost 500 environmental experts and activists have been prosecuted in the two years of the full-scale war, more than 70 of them due to their anti-war position, five people have also been imprisoned.
But in some cases, local environmental campaigns also prove to be successful – for example, an analytical Environmental-Crisis Group have counted more than 70 successful campaigns across Russia in 2023. Sometimes local environmental protests have also led to changes in regional governments.
Already before the full-scale war there was some criticism of these campaigns, saying many of them were also tolerated to “let the steam go”, instead of directing protest energy into more political action –such criticism can also be applied today. In order to truly professionalize and have a larger scale political and social impact, potentially becoming the basis for the much-needed political transformation, these grass-root movements should politicize their actions, however, this can also be rather difficult in current restrictive conditions in Russia.
Further professionalization is also hindered by the fact that many professional actors, including international NGOs like Greenpeace, WWF, Bellona have been announced as ‘undesirable’ and had to cease their activities in the country (even though in some cases, their former employees created new environmental organizations). In the pre-war years, very often professional experts, lawyers and communication specialists from these NGOs helped local grassroot movements by providing free legal help, organizing media and public campaigns, lobbying for the causes at various political levels. Now that support is gone, and there’re very few critical independent lawyers willing to help (especially at no cost) or independent media outlets eager to report about the case.
There are a few exceptions to this. For example, some Russian environmental experts and lawyers (based both in Russia and outside it) are still trying to provide help to such groups in the areas of civic environmental expertise, environmental campaigning or legal cases. Another interesting story is a collective legal claim of climate activists and experts, including representative of the indigenous communities, against Russian authorities in Russian and international courts, saying that Russia’s climate targets are not in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement (in which Russia is a still a party to) while Russia’s domestic climate legislation does not comply with climate protection goals and wellbeing of its citizens.
Stealing the ‘green’ protests
Recent years have also shown numerous attempts of the state actors to instrumentalize and hijack environmental agenda in Russia. It often takes form of creating fake non-governmental organizations (GONGOs)or supporting the ones which have a pro-governmental position.
Environmental working groups of Narodny Front, environmental movement Ecosystem, Clubs of young nature defenders of the Movement of the First (Dvizhenie Pervykh), youth environmental movement Eko-molodezhka, foundations Kompas and Nature and People – many new directly or indirectly state-supported organizations and movements are trying to appropriate civil ‘green’ agenda by providing environmental educational programs, encouraging citizens to come up with environmental ideas and innovations, working with the youth, but also trying to fill in various other niches where earlier international NGO players were active.
Even though most of these organizations lack professionalism and expertise of independent environmental experts, they still have a competitive advantage of having access to thousands of people, including the youth and promoting “safe, state-approved environmental activism” to them – which can then also be seen as a career chance for many people across various regions in Russia.
At the same time, several government-close analysts also do notice real grass-root environmental protests and movements – and recommend regional authorities to work, manage and coopt these groups and campaigns, rather than suppressing them.
Environmental movements and ideas inside and outside Russia
Following the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2024 many environmental and climate experts, activists and journalists have left Russia. Now the environmental movement is also divided into those who stay in the country and continue their work and those who continue their work from outside Russia. Within the country, some (though a minor share) of environmental activists have also expressed either a pro-war or a neutral position, leading to the unspoken agreement in the most grass-root environmental groups and campaigns not to discuss political situation in the country (even though very heated political debates still arise from time to time).
Overall, the two groups (those who left and who stayed) of the environmental movement keep contact with each other, sometimes meet (mostly online, rarely offline, in third countries), organize (invitation-only) trainings and capacity building events, exchange information and try to help each other. The experts and analysts outside Russia do investigative, advocacy and lobbying activities (also in cooperation with international NGOs), carry out analytical research, keep international contacts. Some groups also work specifically on environmental and climate consequences of the war in Ukraine. The ones within Russia continue working with the general public, engage in advocacy work, do on-site environmental expertise, help activists in legal proceedings and in courts.
Most political oppositional groups working outside Russia still perceive the environmental and climate agenda as not the most urgent and do not include them into their political platforms or view them as important elements of their vision of future post-war Russia. In comparison,a group of exiled experts and activists from Belarus recently launched a platform for the vision of Green Belarus until 2050.
“The political movement created and led by Alexei Navalny helped bring environmental issues to the forefront in Russia – and could have played a key role in their future progress if the opposition politician had not died”, some exiled Russian experts and activists said, following the death of the politician in mid-February 2024. Yet, for certain oppositional groups of younger generations topics of environmental and climate protection, along with feminism, LBGT+ rights, decolonization issues become highly relevant and important – as well as for their supporters.
Building political opposition in today’s Russia or developing political forces from the grass-root regional movements is highly challenging in current repressive political conditions. Whether local protests can further professionalize, institutionalize and build a foundation for the future real civil society and (potentially) political structures – is still an open question. However, monitoring these trends, keeping international contacts and interaction going and supporting critical voices both inside and outside Russia remains largely important.
