Russia International Ecology Leader: Putin meets with Head of the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources Svetlana Radionova

Here’s a better picture

The report provided by Svetlana Radionova is very positive, but she knows there’s much work to be done. The fact that Russia is now one of the top environmental nations is due to two facts—Russia has allocated resources and enacted laws to clean up the very major, health threatening pollution generated during the Soviet Age while getting Russians to be active in the field of ecology to work in tandem with government, something that was never done previously. The other fact is the sharp decline in ecology in many Western nations who were once considered the leaders in that realm. Perhaps the biggest driver is Putin’s national healthcare project which demands the environment be healthy for humans and nature to be healthy. I’ve mentioned Ecocide in the USSR before as providing a before picture to judge Russia’s current progress against. Born a Soviet, Ms. Radionova is older than she looks, and I’ve linked to a bio of her above. She could probably well utilize a staff double its current size given Russia’s immensity. Here’s her report:

S. Radionova: Mr President, allow me to report on the activities of the service. This is a great honor for us.

Until recently, those who did not come across us believed that Rosprirodnadzor is the people who fine poachers, hunters and fishermen. This is not the case at all. We strive to maintain a balance between preserving our country's natural resources, developing industry, and ensuring a decent life for every person in our country and a decent environment.

The work of the controller is not easy, there is a lot of negativity in it, but there are also positive aspects. Let me tell you about three of them that I wanted to cover today.

Vladimir Putin: Please.

S. Radionova: First of all, I would like to thank you for the fact that ecology today has ceased to be such a "weekend holiday", when it is only subbotniks and planting a tree in your own yard.

Today, ecology in Russia is not a buzzword like ESG-agenda or presentations, it is actions and results.

The Government is implementing the most ambitious project in history – the national project "Ecology", on your behalf. It includes such serious projects as" Clean Country"," Clean Air","Improvement of water bodies". And we actively support them.

In the "Clean Country" 288 landfills, objects of accumulated damage. We support each site from the moment the project documentation is developed until the last bulldozer leaves the site, when the grass is being sown there. Instead of a landfill, we get a clean, improved territory and actually a green lawn. We do the same for all other projects.

There is such a project "General cleaning". It was born out of a popular request. Three thousand map items were actually created in Yandex Map Editor. We have examined almost a third of them and we know in priority which ones need to be reclaimed now, and which ones can still wait.

Separately, I would like to mention such a richness of our country as water resources. We are the largest custodian of fresh water sources for the entire world community and preserve it not only for ourselves, but for the entire civilization. And we are making our rivers and waterways healthier. And, looking at how the federal project "Improving the Volga River" is being implemented, we realized that the Government will not stop there.

In two years, Rosprirodnadzor examined eight major water bodies: the Don, Ob, Irtysh, Angara, Selenga, and two coasts – the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. We now know everything about these rivers and these coasts. We conducted 28,000 samples, we took bottom water deposits, we passed these rivers from source to mouth. We know every water outlet, every company that operates there. We conducted 250,000 studies. And now we know everything about these water bodies. We are ready to implement such projects.

Vladimir Putin: What is it like in the Caspian Sea? Our oil and gas companies also work there.

S. Radionova: Our oil and gas companies meet high standards, we have no questions for them, and no unauthorized discharges have been recorded. We are very strict about this. They provide us with access. Even now, during the moratorium period, we calmly visit all objects at their invitation during preventive visits. We have no restrictions and, by and large, there is no conflict in this area. All our platforms that are located on the Caspian Sea have zero discharge. We have the same situation in the Baltic Sea.

Vladimir Putin: And you fix it?

S. Radionova: Yes, we can fix this absolutely clearly and constantly monitor it.

Vladimir Putin: What do we have in the Baltic Sea?

S. Radionova: It's the same, we have zero reset for all the objects that we output. And I can also say about Prirazlomnaya, which is an object of Gazprom Neft, which is located in the northern seas, and it is the same there. All the facilities located on the shelf currently meet the highest international standards, and all technologies are observed there. And we are very strict about this.

Vladimir Putin: The Black Sea coast is the main holiday destination for the whole of Russia.

S. Radionova: We are currently supporting a large-scale project that the Government is preparing for the construction of wastewater treatment plants. Personally, I have passed every water outlet in Sochi and along the entire coast with my own feet, walked a large number of kilometers on foot, and we are waiting for a major reconstruction.

The same coast of Gelendzhik – we accompany the construction of sewage treatment plants. This will also be a large-scale project that will allow you to free up an entire bay. And we think that in the next four years we will get a completely different picture.

Vladimir Putin: And the participants of these projects find funding, do you know anything about it?

S. Radionova: Funding is probably not exactly our issue. But we can see how the project is being implemented in Gelendzhik. We understand how the project to improve the Sochi coast is being formed.

Vladimir Putin: And who are the main participants?

S. Radionova: As far as I understand, Rostec is doing this in Gelendzhik, a large company, and we are checking the project documentation. Our task is to check the project documentation and understand that the achieved effect will be environmentally friendly. You know how it happens here: there are sewage treatment plants, but there is no sewage treatment plant.

We won't have it that way. We clearly see that there are sewage treatment plants, so that the wastewater that is delivered there clearly meets the requirements that will be at the exit. And at the exit, we will get water that meets all standards.

Vladimir Putin: But the project "Clean Air" in 12 cities – how is it?

S. Radionova: The Clean Air project is one of the most difficult projects. It was a long preparation, and the regulatory documents were not ready, because this was never implemented.

You know, the most annoying thing for us is when I come to one of these cities and everyone says: "Let's get some air: Radionova has arrived." And indeed, sometimes it is. But now all enterprises have approved their programs, and many are changing their technological solutions. That's all, in fact, no one stopped. The replacement of technical solutions does not affect the final result, even if it exists – we have two objects in each of them.

And now we are waiting for a real result by 2025. All the companies have committed themselves, but not one of them has stopped. This is our task.

Well, separately - this is motor transport. This task is being fully implemented, and motor transport is changing not only in 12 cities, but also everywhere it is becoming eco-friendly.

Vladimir Putin: How many employees do you have in the regions?

S. Radionova: We have only 3,500 people, which is not so much. When you think of the vast expanses of Yamal or Yakutia, it is clear that not every inspector can get there.

But now, on your instructions, we are implementing a large-scale experiment, probably like consulting: remember, Delovaya Rossiya, Alexey Repik asked you to give the controller the opportunity to advise businesses at an early stage, and you allowed it. And they asked us to be the most unpleasant supervisors for them at that time, and we signed 30 agreements with companies. These are not just papers, we support projects and help reduce the investment cycle, find the best cost-effective solutions when the company, of course, wants to save money, but achieve results.

NOVATEK's projects that are currently being implemented in Gydan – I was there and looked at them – meet all the requirements. We support the Nakhodka Mineral Fertilizer Plant, Russian Railways projects, the Northern Sea Route (infrastructure), and the Northern Latitudinal Passage at the earliest stage. We support all this at the earliest stage and actually prevent possible consequences and conflict with us as a controller, conflict with the state. We save a lot of time and a lot of money.

And, of course, the environmental assessment, which we have done together with the Ministry of Construction in the "one-stop shop" system, greatly reduces time, and time is money and the implementation of infrastructure projects.

Vladimir Putin: The fines are more than $ 17.5 billion, right?

S. Radionova: We collect fines. Of course, providing support for businesses, we take the most severe measures to those who do not pay. You said in the Message: "The violator pays." Everyone remembers this principle, and we are clearly implementing it.

You scrolled through the slide and it says: "All payments are colored". Every ruble collected for the environment goes to the environment and is returned back to the region, to the place where the damage was caused. This moment is very important, it is a new milestone in the development of the ecological vector.

We collect fines. We are not very proud of this, but we still believe that prevention is much better than the fines themselves.

And a separate issue that I would like to discuss is the issue of technology. Ecology is often, you know, technological slavery or technological blackmail. We can see this very clearly.

We were told that we don't have the technology to dispose of waste. In our language, this is disposal, for any person it is just the destruction of waste. You gave instructions, and Rusnano presented its idea for plasma chemical destruction. A facility that destroys chemical, medical, biological, and other hazardous waste.

We did a lot of research, we followed her even at night. We set up cameras so that we wouldn't be deceived, and they watched us day and night. Our best laboratories, two of our laboratories, looked after this installation. And we can clearly say that it meets all standards, complete decomposition into molecules is achieved, and it can work with both medical waste, veterinary waste and other types of hazardous waste.

I see you've opened the slide on bears. This is probably our most enjoyable mission. We monitor the protection of Red Book animals. We rescue the wounded and house the confiscated ones. We often work with law enforcement agencies and customs. We had a case where we saved a thousand turtles taken from a smuggler. There are a lot of hunting birds. We also assign them to places of rehabilitation.

Separately, I want to say, remember, there was a "whale prison", the whole country watched it, and you gave instructions, the Government made a decision. Over the past four years, no permits have been issued for the capture and commercial sale of a marine mammal. All this can now be done only by the decision of the government commission. Only the indigenous peoples of the North can produce cetaceans now, and we have managed to achieve this. I think this is a big step forward.

And separately, our biggest, probably protected predator, the most intelligent animal in Russia, is the polar bear. This is our pride, an Arctic predator. We managed to save 17 bears in the last four years. Four of them were placed in zoos because they could not have been returned to the wild, and we are trying to keep the rest in nature as much as possible.

We have a unique operation together with Gazprom. They have two cubs on their field, they are left without a mother, and the shift workers are kind enough to feed them buns from the canteen. It's very funny when they are small, but then they grew into a very serious animal, and it became dangerous to be around them. And together with Gazprom, our specialists, and the Moscow Zoo, we had to immobilize them and carry them a long distance.

But they came back because they were used to getting food. The animal is very intelligent, it will eat wherever it is comfortable. We immobilized them again and took them far away, left them fish, put sensors and chips on them. We clearly know that they have returned to their natural habitat, and this success is very great, because they have lived close to humans for a long time.

The whole country watched as they rescued a bear who had a jar of condensed milk stuck on his tongue. He licked the can of condensed milk, and his tongue got stuck, swollen. He put it in there, cut himself, and then his tongue swelled up, and she couldn't get rid of it, bear. Everyone watched this, and our children wrote to us.

And the Moscow Zoo, our specialists, specialists of Norilsk Nickel, because this village is Dixon, flew there and saved the bear. They also immobilized her. She fell asleep and the jar was pulled out of her mouth.

Everyone watched the rehabilitation of mishka, whose limbs were immobilized: he was placed in the Moscow Zoo, lived a long life for a bear with such injuries.

And of course, we understand that when developing the Arctic, we must take great care of this bear. But our companies are responsible, and here we have no refusal. We always turn to those who are on the territory, and they help us. And in the end, our task is to make it convenient for everyone to live: the animals that we preserve, so that water resources and natural resources are preserved, and each of our people can safely open the window.

Vladimir Putin: You have a proposal, a project, right? "Bear Patrol" – what is it?

S. Radionova: Yes, we would like to organize a "Bear Patrol", because it is very important for us: we teach people in conflict situations how to behave. Naturally, the residents who live there, the village of Dixon, they are afraid, afraid for themselves, for their children. And this training and carrying out such work at our level, at the level of the subject of the Russian Federation, seems to us very important. And we ask you to support us in this.

Vladimir Putin: So, what do you need to do for this?

S. Radionova: For this purpose, it is necessary that the subject of the Russian Federation form such a permanent team, and we will train it.

Basically, we now have a lot of conflict situations in the village of Dixon. It is difficult to access, it is a long way to fly by helicopter, there are not so many specialists there. There is no veterinary specialist, no bear specialist, we bring a specialist there every time, a doctor from Moscow, from the Moscow Zoo. Svetlana Akulova helps us a lot, they are great experts on polar bears.

In general, we have an idea to make a white bear a symbol, because we know about panda diplomacy – what China does with its Red Book animal. It seems to us that we have the same right: 30 percent of the polar bear population lives with us, and we do not extract it. We don't have a hunting permit, unlike our neighbors.

Vladimir Putin: As for our neighbors, our international contacts, and our commitments.

S. Radionova: We have a fairly large international program, and we meet all the requirements of our international obligations. There is the Stockholm Convention, which is a country's obligation to dispose of hazardous persistent organic pollutants. And this year, for the first time, Russian Railways, together with Rosatom, destroyed 134 tons of such a dangerous substance under our control. We are the only ones in the post-Soviet space who have their own such technology, we are the only ones who actually did it. In fact, we are the fourth country in the world to actually fulfill these obligations.

The Basel Convention, the Stockholm Convention, the Rotterdam Convention-we meet all these requirements and are ready to report to the international community.

This year's 50th anniversary of CITES is the commitment of all countries to trade in rare and endangered species. We are probably one of the biggest leaders there, and we protect our animals and take part in all international programs in the same way.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you.

Unmentioned in this report but discussed in 2023’s meeting is the mandatory recycling law and how it’s affected Russia. There’s also the issue of industrial wastes whose disposal is now the job of Rosatom and other major Russian public utilities. Cooperation of Russia’s energy industry in the ecological field is helped greatly by the fact that that industry is very aware of the fragility of the environment in which they’re operating. The attitude towards fines is interesting because the fines represent a failure in environmental responsibility and the negative publicity that goes with that, and businesses aren’t the only violators as municipalities are also guilty. One can contrast the huge failure of the USA’s Superfund projects with the advancement Russia’s made. For example, the situation at the Hanford site in Washington state where its wastes are approaching the water table that feeds into the Columbia River would be actively and aggressively attacked in Russia but is allowed to progress here.

Given the very harmful affects from Soviet Era pollution, most Russians have a heightened awareness of the need to be ecologically sound. And most Russians certainly love their animal icons, not just their house pets. And of course, Russia’s government isn’t captured by polluting industries and those who look to profit from the illnesses they generate like those in North America.

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