Russian natural resources watchdog estimates environmental damage caused by companies at 125 bln rubles in 2024

MOSCOW. Feb 18 (Interfax) - The Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources (Rosprirodnadzor) presented companies and individual entrepreneurs claims totaling 124.8 billion rubles for environmental damage in 2024, Rosprirodnadzor head Svetlana Radionova said in a presentation in the Federation Council.

At the same time, only 3.05 billion rubles was recovered.

Rosprirodnadzor calculated 212 billion rubles in damage a year earlier, and recovered 3.56 billion rubles from violators.

"There are amounts that, unfortunately, will be very difficult [to recover], and maybe we will never get them, because, if my memory serves me correctly, one of these damages is 43 billion rubles accrued to an individual entrepreneur [this is one of the cases in 2022]. The amount is stunningly large, and we have no opportunity not to calculate it, as this is our authority and our obligation in the presence of identified pollution. Hence, we have to either spend several billion rubles by our entire country to reclaim it, or try to recover it from him. But it is clear that he will go bankrupt and that will be the end of the situation," Radionova said in April 2023, noting that Rosprirodnadzor is experiencing difficulties in recovering payments for environmental damage.