Russia’s Descent into Terminal War Economy Revealed in Groundbreaking Report
Amsterdam, Netherlands – A new report from Greenpeace International has shed light on Russia‘s alarming descent into a terminal war economy, marked by a “troika” of fossil fuel extractivism, authoritarianism, and militarism. The report, entitled “Fossil Fuel Empire: The Environment of Post-2022 Russia and the Kremlin’s Threat to Domestic and Global Stability and Sustainability,” is the first of its kind to systematically analyze transformations in Russia’s environmental governance, climate policy, biodiversity, and socioeconomic and political dimensions.
The report draws on hundreds of sources gathered from outside Russia after the post-2022 crackdown, providing a coherent picture of the desperate state of a country where economic sanctions, spiraling corruption, sabotage of international conventions, and entrenched fossil fuel dependence are driving devastation in Ukraine, Russia, and beyond. Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director, emphasized the importance of this groundbreaking reporting, stating that it comes as war-waging regimes attempt to completely ignore international law and environmental safeguards.
Putin’s Petrostate: A Threat to Global Stability
The report outlines how Russia promotes its extractivist agenda in international fora, prioritizing profits and power above all else while dismissing “justice” and “inclusivity” as fads. Russia also uses its so-called “peaceful atom” nuclear industry as a lever of influence over 50+ countries it now has nuclear energy agreements with, and as a means to weaponize nuclear energy infrastructure abroad.
Foreign financing through exports of fossil fuels and other resources like timber has funded Russia‘s war chest and entrenched its destructive behavior. While international sanctions have had some effect, many countries continue to buy Russian oil and gas, with a sanctions-dodging “shadow fleet” of ageing, unsafe tankers carrying exports that dramatically increase the likelihood of accidents and oil spills.
Environmental Resistance in the Face of Repression
Despite widespread and systematic repression of domestic dissent, the environment remains one of the few topics that arouse sustained public interest in Russia and continue to generate protest, including direct confrontation. Mads Christensen added that governments and powerful elites have attacked Greenpeace and their movement allies for decades, but they did not give up and grew stronger.
The report represents a major milestone in the environmental movement’s resistance to state oppression, bringing together scattered data into a coherent picture of Russia‘s devastating descent into a terminal war economy. As the world grapples with the consequences of Putin’s militaristic petrostate, this groundbreaking reporting serves as a warning to the world and a defiant signal following a Kremlin crackdown on environmental and human rights groups in the wake of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Original Article: Russia locked in spiral toward terminal war economy of fossil fuels, state oppression and bloody aggression – pioneering report — Greenpeace