The chaos caused by recent extreme snowstorms across Russia has laid bare the hypocrisy of President Vladimir Putin’s regime when it comes to protecting its own people. The invasion of Ukraine was justified as a defense against imaginary threats posed by Ukraine and the West. In contrast, the real dangers posed by climate change to the Russian people are largely ignored.

Extreme winter weather caused by the climate crisis is becoming an increasingly frequent challenge in Russia. Yet aging infrastructure and a state budget overwhelmingly focused on the war make it even harder for Russians to cope.

Climate change is often associated with warming — and indeed, heat waves, forest fires, droughts floods and melting permafrost are already becoming routine across Russia.

But as the planet warms, extreme cold events are also likely to become more unpredictable and severe.

In the past month alone, we have seen the most significant snowfall since 2001 in Kaliningrad, the heaviest snowfall in 30 years in Kamchatka and the most significant snowfall in over 200 years in Moscow, followed by extremely low temperatures unseen for decades.

These events have led to airport closures, massive traffic jams, road blockages, a state of emergency and blackouts in the Krasnodar and Murmansk regions caused by snowfall and power lines icing over.

The winter of 2025-2026, with its cold-weather events that hit Russia as never before, should be a wake-up call.

Despite widespread climate skepticism and denialism, it is evident that a changing climate is a real threat to Russia. The........

© The Moscow Times