By Ekaterina Janashia | 2025-12-12

Russia sits on one of the world's richest reserves of fresh water, yet millions of its citizens cannot drink safely from their taps.

In the village of Boyarsky -- just 300 meters (984 feet) from Lake Baikal, the planet's largest freshwater reservoir -- residents still haul buckets from the shoreline because the state's Clean Water program has stalled.

Launched to address the country's worsening drinking-water crisis, the federal program spent about 200 billion RUB ($2.5 billion) over five years. But experts said systemic failures and substandard construction limited its impact, even as military spending increasingly overshadowed civilian infrastructure needs.

Boyarsky, a small community of 70 in the Republic of Buryatia, is an example of that imbalance. The village has never had a centralized water system, relying instead on two wooden wells and two street pumps that often fail to meet sanitary standards.

A national problem

"We wrote everywhere we could," one resident told RFE/RL's Sibir.Realii in November. "Baikal is 300 meters away, and we still don't have clean water."

Local wells -- one roughly 30 years old and another dug in 2017 -- proved increasingly unreliable. After a fresh wave of complaints in 2024, officials inspected them and found contamination from snowmelt and rising groundwater. Although one well was cleaned and partially repaired, residents said water levels quickly rose again, leaving contamination unresolved.

Many turned directly to Baikal.

"Elderly people walk all the way down to Baikal to haul water straight from the lake," a resident said.

A railroad-owned pump that draws filtered lake water provided some relief, but it often froze in winter, forcing villagers back to the shoreline or onto the ice.

The region faces wider shortages. Only about 51% of Buryatia's residents had access to clean tap water in 2024. Even Kabansk, the district center, connected to a centralized supply only this year.

Nationwide, about 16 million people -- one in nine Russians -- lacked safe drinking water in 2024. A September report by the To Be Precise project showed access improving only slightly since 2022. The number of people without clean water has trended upward for more than a decade, rising from an estimated 11 million in 2009 to 12.3 million in 2020.

Aging systems, weak oversight

Experts pointed to chronic underinvestment and worn-out systems.

The Accounts Chamber reported that by 2023, 67% of water-intake facilities and 75% of water-supply systems were deteriorated. Replacement remained minimal: just 1% of water infrastructure was renewed between 2021 and 2023.

Pollution intensified the crisis.

Contaminated rivers, untreated sewage, industrial waste, and more frequent flooding linked to climate change all degraded supply sources. Surface water failing sanitary standards increased nearly 5% between 2014 and 2023.

Regulatory changes compounded the problem. A 2023 law reduced oversight, including a moratorium on many routine inspections.

Hydrotechnical engineer Anatoly Dragunov told Sibir.Realii that weakened controls likely contributed to rising contamination.

"They wanted to reduce administrative pressure, but they ended up weakening environmental oversight," he said.

Russia recorded 3,095 cases of high or extreme water contamination in 2024. Funding remained far short of need.

Ecologist Valery Reshetnikov told Sibir.Realii that while Russia has abundant water bodies, access is uneven and infrastructure inadequate. The 53 billion RUB (about $654 million) planned for the Clean Water program in 2025 fell well below requirements; Kalmykia alone needs 50 billion RUB.

"No money, no water," he said. "That applies just as much to regions around Baikal."

Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine drains resources. Russia spends an estimated 30 billion RUB ($370 million) per day on the conflict. Analysts expect military funding in 2025 to exceed spending on all utilities -- including water -- by a factor of 15.

Environmental experts warned that the conflict could introduce new hazards to drinking-water sources.

The Coalition for Sustainable Development of Russia (CSDR) pointed to the Siverskyi Donets basin in the Rostov and Belgorod regions, where several mines flooded during fighting. The water has not yet been tested, but researchers fear the river may no longer be safe once assessments begin.

A CSDR expert described the broader environmental risks.

"Armed conflicts carry many threats to the environment and to the availability of drinking water," the expert told Sibir.Realii. "The threat comes from harmful emissions accompanying rocket launches, fuel and lubricant leaks from military vehicles, military camps and waste from troop activities. All of this will ultimately have an impact."