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EPA/CLEMENS BILAN
After the start of the war with Ukraine, Rospotrebnadzor noted a sharp increase in chemical contamination of food products, drinking water, air, and soil, according to the agency's 2025 report.
Regions with contamination. In 2022, 74.2 million people lived in regions where total chemical contamination exceeded standards, and by 2025 that number had already reached 83.8 million. This is more than half of the country's population, 57%. The figure became a record high since 2016: from that time it had been continuously declining right up until the start of the full-scale invasion.
The top ten regions by number of residents exposed to high chemical contamination include Novgorod Oblast, Sevastopol, North Ossetia, Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk oblasts, Khakassia, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Novosibirsk Oblast, and Zabaykalsky and Primorsky krais. In total, according to the agency, residents of 42 regions are exposed to a "complex chemical burden."
Causes of contamination. The report explains: "The increase in burden since 2022 is linked to growth in industrial production (primarily in energy and machine-building) and in the number of motor vehicles (with growth rates above the annual average), which are among the leading sources of chemical contamination."
At the same time, before the war the level of "complex chemical burden" in Russia had been steadily declining. According to the agency's forecast, in 2025 about 77 million people were expected to live in populated areas where this indicator exceeded the norm.
Rospotrebnadzor does not directly link the increase in harmful substance emissions to the war, but the military conflict and sanctions at least partially contribute to the worsening contamination.
What Rospotrebnadzor does not mention. Behind the "growth in machine-building" that the agency writes about most likely stand defense industry enterprises. In 2025, output in most civilian industrial sectors declined compared with 2024, according to a report by the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis. At the same time, production of "metal products," shipbuilding and aircraft manufacturing, electronics, and optics are growing, that is, sectors of the military-industrial complex.
At the same time, after the start of the war environmental regulation was weakened in the interests of the raw materials and other industrial sectors, and inspections of enterprises were reduced, an environmental expert who asked not to be named told Novaya-Europe. As stated in a Greenpeace International report, in 2022-2023 alone, 12 amendments were made to five key environmental protection laws in order to soften environmental review requirements and reduce costs for big business.
Funding for the federal projects "Clean Air," aimed at reducing pollutant emissions, and "Clean Country," which provides for the elimination of sites of accumulated environmental damage, was cut: their budgets were redirected to the war.
The impact of sanctions. Because of the reorientation of Russian exports from Europe to China, the war, and the crisis in certain sectors, Russian Railways faced difficulties. Freight is shifting from more environmentally friendly rail transport to road transport. According to Rosstat, since 2021 freight turnover by road transport has grown by a third, 34%, while rail freight turnover has declined.
In addition, because of reduced availability of new cars, Russia's vehicle fleet has been aging faster. Nearly 70% of motor vehicles in the country are more than 10 years old. Owners of used cars often remove catalytic converters designed to neutralize toxic exhaust gases. Only 26% of all cars meet the most modern environmental classes, Euro-5 and Euro-6.
Oil product spills, fires at oil storage facilities, and at refineries have also become more frequent. In December 2024, two old Volgoneft tankers were wrecked in the Kerch Strait; they had been transporting fuel oil without permits for loading onto shadow fleet vessels. Altogether they were carrying 9.2 thousand tons of fuel oil.
As stated in the report, up until October 2025 Rospotrebnadzor took weekly sand samples for petroleum product content at 150 beaches in the area of Anapa and Temryuk District. The agency does not report the specific consequences of the accident. However, according to its data, over the year the share of samples across all of Krasnodar Krai that did not meet standards was 12.6%. This is 10 times higher than in 2016.
Why this is bad. The agency's report says that chemical contamination affects overall morbidity, the prevalence of diseases of the respiratory and digestive organs, as well as the endocrine system, circulatory system, musculoskeletal, genitourinary, and nervous systems, as well as malignant neoplasms, including among children. In addition, a high level of emissions can lead to congenital anomalies in children and infant mortality.