Paul Goble
Staunton, June 5 – Many Russians do not take part in protests of any kind because they assume that they will accomplish nothing besides falling victim to repressions by the Putin regime. But that is far from the case in at least one embattled sector – environmental protection.
According to the Ecology Crisis Group, Russian environmentalists and activists won a record 175 victories over business and government during 2025, a record and one that show protests can be effective (https://semnasem.org/news/2026/06/05/rossijskie-ekoaktivisty-oderzhali-v-2025-godu-rekordnye-175-pobed-v-borbe-za-prirodu).
According to the monitoring group, 89 of these victories came when activists protested efforts by businesses or governments to violate rules governing specially protected nature preserves and parks, cases where the environmentalists demanded that those in power live by laws and where the courts agreed.
Unfortunately, of course, the activists did not win all their battles or even most of them; but in the increasingly dark picture presented by Putin’s Russia, it is important to remember that protests can work, one of the major reasons that the Kremlin works so hard to ensure that they do not even take place.
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