Strasbourg, December 11, 2025 — This morning, several environmental activists — plaintiffs in a case concerning Russia’s climate policy — held an action near the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg. Vladimir Slivyak, co-chair of the environmental group Ecodefense, and Arshak Makichyan, an activist with the climate movement Fridays for Future, handed out leaflets to court employees arriving for work. The leaflets called on the ECHR to consider the case against Russia’s climate policy, which has been stalled for more than two years.

The night before, activists staged a protest in Strasbourg, projecting a photo of a smiling Vladimir Putin with a glass of wine and the words “Thank you for your inaction” onto the ECHR building.

In 2022, Ecodefense, the Moscow Helsinki Group, and 18 Russian activists from environmental and human rights organizations, as well as defenders of the rights of indigenous peoples, appealed to the ECHR with a statement about Russia’s dangerous climate policy. Although all the formalities of the court were fulfilled, the case has not yet been considered, despite its priority nature. Russia is one of the four main polluters of the planet and is directly responsible for catastrophic climate change on the planet. Despite the fact that the Russian Federation has signed the Paris Climate Agreement, which obliges it to make efforts to reduce emissions and preserve the climate, Russian strategic documents stipulate an increase in the production and export of fossil fuels. It is the burning of fossil fuels that leads to climate change, which kills many thousands of people every year, activists says.

«Russia is one of the world’s four biggest polluters and is responsible for the rapid and dangerous climate change we are seeing. Every day new emissions are killing the climate, leading to additional deaths in Russia and other countries. And Russia plans to burn even more oil, coal and gas, reducing the chance of an acceptable climate for future generations,» said Vladimir Slivyak, co-chair of the environmental group Ecodefense and the Right Livelihood Award laureate.

“I find it very strange that we risked our freedom by raising these issues in Russia and on the world stage, and now, two years later, there is still no response from the European Court of Human Rights,” said Arshak Makichyan, an activists within the Fridays for Future movement.

Additional information about the Russian climate case in the ECHR can be found here.