Community action/Russia

It has been estimated that Russia's gross potential for solar energy is 2.3 trillion tce. The regions with the best solar radiation potential are the North Caucasus, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea areas, and southern parts of Siberia and the Far East. This potential is largely unused, although the possibilities for off-grid solar energy or hybrid applications in remote areas are huge. However, the construction of a single solar power plant Kislovodskaya SPP (1.5 MW) has been delayed.

Wind power in Russia has a long history of small-scale use, but the country has not yet developed large-scale commercial wind energy production. Most of its current limited wind production is located in agricultural areas with low population densities, where connection to the main energy grid is difficult. By 2018, Russia had a total installed wind capacity of 106 MW, a nearly ten-fold increase over 2016 but still a tiny share of the country's potential.

Russia is estimated to have a total potential of 80,000 TWh/yr for wind energy, 6,218 TWh/yr of which is economically feasible. Most of this potential is found in the southern steppes and the seacoasts of the country, although in many of these areas the population density is very low, at less than 1 person per km². This low population density means that there is little existing electricity infrastructure currently in place, which hinders development of these resources.

Current Russian wind energy projects have a combined capacity of over 1,700 MW, although less than 17 MW had been installed as of the end of 2010. The Russian Wind Energy Association predicts that if Russia achieves its goal of having 4.5% of its energy come from renewable sources by 2020, the country will have a total wind capacity of 7,000 MW.

Environmental activism is a growing movement in Russia and it has developed into different shapes and forms, such as campaigns aiming to tackle both local and regional problems but also to address concerns including pollution, expansion of industries, non-sustainable forestry and further on. Around half of the Russian population (56%) lacks trust towards the country's agencies when it comes to environmental matters and 35% of the population are willing to take part of environmental protests.

Russia, officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the largest country in the world, spanning eleven time zones and sharing land borders with fourteen countries. With a population of over 140 million, Russia is the most populous country in Europe and the ninth-most populous in the world. It is a highly urbanised country, with sixteen of its urban areas having more than 1 million inhabitants. Moscow, the most populous metropolitan area in Europe, is the capital and largest city of Russia, while Saint Petersburg is its second-largest city and a major cultural centre.

Human settlement on modern Russian territory dates back to the Lower Paleolithic. The emergence of the East Slavs as a prominent group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD led to the establishment of Kievan Rus' in the 9th century, which adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988. Following its disintegration, the late medieval Grand Principality of Moscow led the unification of Russian lands, culminating in the formation of the Tsardom of Russia in 1547. By the early 18th century, Russia had expanded vastly through conquest, annexation, and the efforts of Russian explorers. It was proclaimed as the Russian Empire in 1721, which became the third-largest empire in history. The Russian Revolution of 1917 led to the abolition of the Russian monarchy and the creation of the Russian SFSR, the first socialist state. Following the Russian Civil War, Russia became the largest and principal constituent of the newly established Soviet Union in 1922. Amidst rapid industrialisation in the 1930s, millions died under Joseph Stalin. The Soviet Union played a decisive role for the Allies in World War II by leading large-scale efforts on the Eastern Front. During the Cold War, it emerged as a superpower and competed with the United States for ideological dominance. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant Russian technological achievements, including the first human-made satellite and the first human expedition into outer space.