Russia's climate nihilism is not an isolated case.

Whether in Washington or in Moscow – the ruling classes have no plan to tackle the planetary crisis.
Vita Lacis (Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung) 19 February 2026

"We should create an international offshore carbon hub in Russia, where we introduce a climate-related 'New Economic Policy' for foreign companies and investments. Carbon-intensive goods for global export will then be produced in this zone."
Ivan Shidkich, Executive Secretary of the Committee on Climate Policy and Carbon Regulation of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs This tongue-in-cheek suggestion from a representative of Russia's most influential lobbying organization, which acts as a central interface between the largest Russian companies and the national government, provides an insightful glimpse into the mindset of the Russian ruling class and their ideas about climate policy in a world that is now heading straight towards exceeding the two-degree target.

Despite Russia's prominent position on the global market as a major supplier of energy resources—including fossil and nuclear fuels, but also fertilizers and grain—the climate crisis and Russia's role in it are barely visible in Russian society. Apart from the indigenous populations of the Arctic, whose livelihoods depend directly on local ecosystems, hardly anyone in Russia perceives climate change as a concrete problem that already affects their lives today, rather than some distant future. During the 2010s, when Russia experienced major waves of protest, as in other parts of the world , these protests were not about climate issues.

It should not be overlooked that rising temperatures have also played a significant role in devastating events in Russia – for example, the weeks-long heat wave and forest fires in central Russia in 2010. At that time, 17 million people were affected; the disaster led to approximately 55,000 additional deaths. Another example is the flash flood in 2012 in Krymsk, a small town on the Black Sea, which claimed 170 lives in just one night. Climate change is also evident in conflicts over basic living conditions : Longer and more extreme heat waves in the south of the country regularly lead to power outages due to increased energy demand, overloading the already dilapidated power grid. This repeatedly drives people to the streets, demanding accountability from local and regional authorities.

However, even when climate change and potential countermeasures are discussed in the media, they rarely translate into political demands. Many Russians even see climate change as a potential advantage for Russia, for example in the form of rising temperatures with milder winters, the gain of arable land, or the prospect of year-round access to shipping along the Northern Sea Route in the Arctic.

Some political commentators are all too quick to see this as proof of an allegedly inherent characteristic of Russian society: if Russians were unable to resist the invasion of Ukraine, it should hardly be surprising that they also failed to stop their government and ruling classes from gambling away the future of the planet for short-term gains.

However, such an interpretation is a serious misjudgment of the problem. The much-maligned inability and inertia of Russian society to stand up against injustice appears so alarming to outsiders precisely because the behavior in other parts of the world – particularly in Europe and the USA – hardly differs. In this sense, Russia holds a mirror up to the so-called Western world, in which its dystopian features are exaggerated: militarized, characterized by almost barbaric violence, bringing destruction and death, authoritarian, hostile to migrants and minorities, regimented, and monitoring the population at every turn. The technologies and practices of oppression and destruction that the Russian state is currently employing both in Ukraine and within its own borders did not emerge in isolation. Rather, they were produced in close collaboration with the international ruling classes and the scientific-military-industrial complex—and continue to be reproduced by them. [1] Contrary to initial hopes that Russia's aggressive expansion might provide a much- needed boost to the globally stalled phase-out of fossil fuels, the production and consumption of coal, oil, and gas continue to rise sharply worldwide .

These observations are by no means intended to absolve Russia of its responsibility—neither at the level of individuals, nor of organizations or governments—nor to serve as an excuse for extricating itself from the situation by claiming that "it's the same everywhere." Rather, they are intended to soberly define the scale of the task before us. The interconnected planetary crises of the economy, society, and climate demand an equally interconnected political entity capable of effectively addressing them. Such an entity does not yet exist. Instead, we are witnessing a global race of nations toward the abyss—the only future currently envisioned by the respective ruling classes.

Russia: A fossilized monstrosity like no other?
It may be well-intentioned, but the idea that there is a previous status quo to which we can return once “evil actors” like Putin, Netanyahu, or Trump are marginalized by a broad coalition ultimately proves harmful. For it is precisely this status quo and its progressive self-destruction that has led us to where we are today. The political center is disintegrating before our very eyes. It is losing its legitimacy—be it through the serial bailouts of large corporations and banks during the global financial crisis, the moral depravity of the Epstein affair, the erosion of international law in Gaza, or the general inability to effectively address the climate crisis—as well as the electoral base that has supported it until now. Are we, then, living in a “time of monsters,” in Antonio Gramsci’s famous interregnum? Perhaps. Nevertheless, I am more inclined to agree with what Mike Davis wrote shortly before his death just over three years ago :

"That would presuppose that something new is born, or could even be born. I have my doubts about that. Instead, we must diagnose a brain tumor of the ruling class: a growing inability to coherently understand global change as a basis for defining common interests and developing large-scale strategies." Rather, we are increasingly succumbing to what Samir Amin once called a “ realm of chaos ”: a world in which, instead of a clear shift in hegemony, the decline of hegemony is taking place without a socialist alternative having emerged, while the neoliberal global economy is increasingly disintegrating along geopolitical and geoeconomic fault lines. On the surface, this new order (or rather, its absence) manifests itself in the increase in military conflicts in regions that can be described as the peripheries of the global center. Meanwhile, beneath the surface, a complex economic restructuring is underway, driven by the gradual decline in capital investment and profitability, the rise of economic nationalist strategies, and profoundly unequal “green” transitions.

This is the context in which the Russian government and the country's ruling class operate. They are attempting to consolidate Russia's role as a sub-imperial actor while simultaneously seeking to be among those defining the rules of a potential new order. A crude metaphor circulating at numerous forums and conferences of Russian businesspeople and economic experts encapsulates this: Russia must secure a seat at the table in these turbulent times—and ensure it doesn't end up on the menu. If this requires the death and maiming of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians (and Russians), the destruction of entire cities and villages, the displacement of millions, and the devastation of entire ecosystems, then this is considered a necessary price to pay.

To their great dismay, those states that lack a nuclear arsenal to protect them from this fate find themselves on that very menu. Even more troubling, however, is that this assessment of the current situation by the Russian ruling class is shared by virtually all other ruling classes and extends to all economic and political spheres worldwide. Given the lack of common, desirable goals and solutions, the individual lifeboat thus appears to be the only remaining way out of the crisis. This became particularly evident at the Belém climate summit , which was characterized by conflicting approaches and interests. While Russia, Saudi Arabia, and India led a group of petrostates that objected even to the mere mention of fossil fuels in the final declaration, attempts by Europe and its allies to introduce a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) met with considerable resistance. The majority of delegations perceived it as an economic nationalist measure intended to finance the green transition at the expense of those countries lacking the technological and economic prerequisites for decarbonization. The result was a compromise that satisfied no one and, above all, further entrenched the disastrous energy policy status quo of the global economy.

In other words, Russia is not an isolated case. The current national and global paralysis is deeply entrenched. With the increasing regionalization of the world market, new sub-imperial powers are emerging in the shadow of the traditional “common rule of core states.” Countries such as Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil are increasingly assuming proactive, often overtly violent, roles in the trade sectors they specialize in and the regional spheres of influence they dominate. Particularly where the US and other core states are strategically withdrawing—for example, in parts of sub-Saharan Africa or Southeast Asia—they are enforcing market discipline and expanding their resource portfolios and target markets. [2] At the same time, this partial hegemonic withdrawal is accompanied by more direct intervention in selected key regions and industries, as demonstrated by the Trump administration’s aggression against Venezuela, threats against Greenland, and US government stakes in companies like Intel and in firms in the critical minerals sector.

The cynical calculation of the ruling class
In the course of post-Soviet development, the Russian ruling class arrived at three insights. First, it became clear that a geopolitical "place at the table" was by no means guaranteed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Second, the rapid decline in industrial production capacity resulting from the extreme neoliberal reforms of the 1990s led to the national economy becoming highly dependent on a few, comparatively technologically weak sectors—particularly fossil fuels and petrochemicals, steel, and fertilizer production. This simultaneously eliminated incentives for automation or technological modernization of production. Russia was thus predestined to fall behind in technological competition and became increasingly dependent on imported technologies, for example, in the areas of mechanical engineering, industrial plants, and semiconductors. Third, import substitution strategies proved largely ineffective: most Russian substitute products were not internationally competitive, while the domestic market remained too small to absorb them to a degree that would have ensured their profitability. The progressive loss of post-Soviet export markets further exacerbated this dynamic.

This seemingly inevitable economic decline is now being perversely "solved" in and at the expense of Ukraine, with Russia relying on its only remaining internationally competitive high-tech industry: the defense sector. Alongside the demonstrative confrontation with the EU and the US, there is hope that the war will stimulate Russian production capacity and propel Russian companies to the technological forefront, at least in selected key value chains. This applies particularly to dual-use technologies such as drones, autonomous vehicles, and batteries. However, these sectors—like the war itself—can only be financed by massive profits from fossil fuels. In this sense, the goal of the Russian ruling class hardly differs from that of large energy companies and their shareholders worldwide: they, too, want to secure their role as energy suppliers for as long as possible. To maintain its position in the global division of labor, Russia strives to keep energy prices low within the country and to secure its dominance over supply routes, and thus also profitable exports. Against this backdrop, Russia's focus on the Arctic, particularly the Northern Sea Route, and the expansion of its nuclear capabilities become clear.

In such a scenario, “green” value chains and decarbonization projects can at best function as supporting infrastructure for the continued extraction of fossil raw materials and/or for the military-industrial complex (and thus serve as the lubricant of a capital accumulation machine): They release additional oil and gas for export, provide energy for extraction in remote regions of the “ planetary mine ”, diversify value chains along dual-use technologies and give oil and gas companies as well as the state itself a green image by means of nature-based CO₂ compensations and large-scale scientific climate monitoring projects.

In other words, green value chains can only develop within a “ security-sustainability nexus ” where “security” encompasses both economic and military dimensions, while “sustainability” primarily refers to the continuation and resilience of a fossil fuel-based economic model. This also dictates the priorities of a supposedly “cost-efficient” national climate policy: a strong focus on monitoring and adaptation rather than actual emissions reduction, and the development of financial infrastructure for carbon markets that allow extractive industries to “offset” their emissions. In this “realistic climate approach,” decarbonization remains a mere abstraction . Climate policy is reduced to establishing the “right” standards and relies on the assumption of supposedly unlimited absorption capacities of ecosystems—with the result that the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels can continue unhindered. The only real obstacles appear, in this logic, to be economic in nature—such as tariffs or market rules—and are to be overcome through tactical regulatory compliance or reciprocal countermeasures at the national level.

In this respect, too, Russia is not an isolated case, but rather a paradigmatic example of a “realistic climate approach,” the basic features of which can be traced particularly clearly here. The political-economic logic of the Russian ruling class permeates the entire social fabric. It shapes ideological and theoretical frameworks such as the much-invoked project of “sovereignization,” which envisions Russia as a technologically, economically, and militarily autonomous state with regional and global power ambitions. These narratives reinforce existing tendencies in Russian political economy by portraying its logic and interests as “natural” or “traditional,” while simultaneously extending far into the future through official plans and programs and occupying the political imagination of the ruling class for decades to come.

For planetary solidarity
So what might a future eco-socialist policy in Russia and beyond look like? Within the left, one assessment has largely prevailed: Capitalism is consuming our future to such an extent that it seems almost unimaginable, at least beyond individual success. This, in turn, remains confined to the national level—to the endless race for growth and leadership. The New Left—or what remains of it—has formulated essentially two answers to this problem over the past fifty years. Either it adapted to the given conditions, for example through broad-based left-populist projects that sought to restore at least parts of the welfare state. Or it retreated into alternative forms of communal living that drew on socialist and utopian experiments of the 19th century. Both strategies were tested far beyond the so-called Western world and also influenced left-wing mobilization efforts in Russia, where, after the collapse of the Soviet project, the left had to search for models for reinvention.

Today, however, there are hardly any places left where one could retreat into a romantic idyll of autonomy, while the political status quo to which we may have tried to adapt lies in ruins, and the political mainstream increasingly succumbs to the genocidal depths of nationalist fervor. The shadows of Mariupol, Gaza, and El Fasher hang heavy over the remnants of the 21st century. At the same time, climate, food, and water crises are exacerbating each other, further accelerating the spread of the "realm of chaos." The former promise of growth and development is increasingly mutating into a promise of being eliminated from the menu.

A way out of these nightmarish, fragmented future scenarios produced by the existing system can only emerge at the planetary level and through a radical restructuring of existing global dependencies. However, a planetary political subject currently exists only as a void. For Russian socialists—most of them in exile—this presents an opportunity to actively participate in its formation: by sharing their experiences of organizing under repressive conditions, engaging on a theoretical and strategic level, participating in local struggles, and integrating their analyses of the Russian state and Russian society into an international political struggle. Neither nation-states nor imperial powers and their alliances are set in stone. On the contrary, we can assume that they will dissolve, rearrange, and transform over the course of our lifetime. It follows that the current historical moment demands a collective rethinking of the global crisis as well as a fundamental reorientation of solidarity-based politics. Neither the state nor its interests should be considered the sole primary arena for (political) change. Rather, the starting point must be the realization that the necessary political subject is lacking and therefore must first be established.

This alone will not guarantee a new realm of possibilities. However, the project could be precisely what is needed to dust off the banner of the " communist hypothesis ," as Alain Badiou once called it, and to deny the necessity of the existing world order. This, like any guiding principle, remains initially an abstraction. Our task is to make it concrete.

Translation from English by Charlotte Thießen and Conny Gritzner for Kontrast Translation Collective. [1] The designation of Ukraine as a “testing ground” for advanced military technologies has become so commonplace that the Ukrainian government even formalized this practice in 2025 by launching the “Test in Ukraine” program. The Russian military-industrial complex, of course, views the battlefield in a very similar way. [2] Russia’s own geopolitical expansion can be traced by mapping international projects operated by the state-owned company Rosatom.
https://www.rosalux.de/news/id/54478/russlands-klima-nihilismus-ist-kein-sonderfall?

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Vita Lacis is a scientist and journalist specializing in the environment and economics.




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