United Russia Routinely Blocks Public Efforts to Protect the Environment, New Report Shows

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 24 – Russians are increasingly concerned about the degradation of the environment, but they are seldom able to get the Russian Duma to pass legislation to protect the air and water around them, according to a new report by the DumaBingo project in advance of Russian parliamentary elections in September.

            Novaya Gazeta has published the 5,000-word report. It shows that the Kremlin and the United Russia super majority in the Duma work together to advance and protect business interests by blocking public efforts to achieve greater protection of the environment (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/06/24/eko-nevidal).

            DumaBingo considered 73 proposals for environmental reform over the last 30 months. “More than half” of these were advanced not by environmental groups but by businesses. Only 16 percent of the bills received the backing of the ecological community, “and only two of these became laws.” 

            “This imbalance,” DumaBingo says, “is the direct result of the lack in Russia of a law on lobbies and the lack of transparency of the profile committee on ecology where decisions are often taken without the participation of independent experts and scholars” but instead reflect whatever United Russia and the Kremlin want.

            That is something Russian voters concerned about protecting the environment should remember when they go to the polls.