Water Shortages Now Hitting Russia Hard Across the Board

Water Shortages Now Hitting Russia Hard Across the Board

Executive Summary:

• Russia is now facing water shortages across the board, with climate change and human use driving declines in food production, desertification, and restrictions on riverine and coastal shipping.
• This trend has not only limited Moscow’s ability to use water as a political weapon in neighboring regions such as Central Asia and to earn money by selling it to the People’s Republic of China but also compromised any chance it will become a major “water power” in the future.
• Moscow has yet to take actions that could make a big difference, limiting itself to small steps such as expanding dredging capacity, lest taking larger ones take money away from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war, but Ukraine’s attacks on Russia’s water networks may make this approach unsustainable.

Better known for its massive spring flooding than for its occasional droughts, Russia is now being hit across the board by water shortages in ever more parts of the country. Accelerating climate change and growing human use are leading to declines in food production for domestic use and export, desertification—Russia now has the largest desert in Europe— and restrictions on riverine and coastal shipping, including the critical Northern Sea Route (NSR) and North–South Route via the Caspian Sea (Fond Strategicheskoi Kul’tury, February 8; Gorizontal’naya Rossiya, August 5; Stolitie, August 11; The Moscow Times, August 26). This trend has limited Moscow’s ability to use water as a political weapon in neighboring regions such as Central Asia—likely killing any chance of Siberian river diversion to that region, which might help hold it in the Russian orbit—and to earn money by selling it to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which has its own water shortage problems. These issues also compromise the possibility that Russia will be a major “water power” in the future (Plotina.Net!, May 11, 2019; Noviye Izvestiya, June 3, 2023; VFokuse, April 7). Despite warning signs, Moscow, while clearly concerned, has yet to take the kind of concerted action that might make a big difference, limiting itself to small steps, such as inviting other countries to help deepen its rivers and expanding domestic dredging capacity, lest it take more significant ones that would take money away from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine (see EDM, February 24, 2023; Window on Eurasia, August 9). That stance is becoming politically unsustainable given that Ukraine is now targeting Russia’s water distribution networks (The Moscow Times, August 12).

Every spring, Russia suffers from massive flooding as snow and ice melt and rivers overflow their banks. This unwelcome surfeit of water, however, also serves as a reminder of how much freshwater Russia possesses and thus has distracted attention from the far greater problems increasing shortages of water—brought about by climate change and expanded human use—are producing (Gorizontal’naya Rossiya, August 5; URA.RU, September 5). Ignoring this has become impossible. Perhaps most immediately dramatic for the Russian population are new potable water shortages in major cities and the emergence of what is now the largest desert in Europe in the southern part of the country. This dead zone is currently expanding by more than 500 square kilometers (193 square miles) a year, reducing food crops in neighboring areas and sending prices skyrocketing (Window on Eurasia, November 17, 2024, August 11). Russians are growing furious about both developments at a time when they are fed stories about flooding and the possibility that Russia will use water as a major foreign policy tool (Kedr.Media, August 12, 2025). Their anger has been compounded by shortages of potable water in Russian villages and even major cities, a problem that also reflects a broader collapse in civic infrastructure (Govorit NeMoskva, August 5; Nakanune.ru, August 21; Yesli Byt’ Tochnym, September 5).

Moscow officials appear less concerned about that than about three other larger and longer-term problems and one immediate one. First, they worry about the impact of falling water levels on Russia’s rivers, a development that is compromising the country’s transportation system both domestically and internationally. Domestically, the riverine system has collapsed not only because Moscow has failed to build new vessels but also because falling water levels mean that older and larger vessels can no longer ply rivers that are not being dredged sufficiently to keep them open and support both the economies of Russia’s far-flung regions and its export capabilities. Because domestic shipping plays an outsize role in supporting Russian exports of bulk cargo such as coal, grain, and oil, this is also affecting Russia’s ability to earn money internationally (Sibirskiy Ekonomist, January 18; Nezavisimaya Gazeta, July 2). 

Second, Moscow officials also appear disturbed that Russia’s own water shortages will prevent it from the possibility of sending water to Central Asia, as it has suggested it might do, and to the PRC. Russia  very much wants to keep Central Asia in its zone of influence and to both earn money and cement its alliance with Beijing. Falling water levels inside Russia have likely killed off talk about the diversion of Siberian river water southward. They are also limiting the possibility of sales to the PRC even though many in Moscow very much want to carry through with its plans (Plotina.Net!, May 11, 2019; VFokuse, April 7).

Third, Moscow appears particularly alarmed that falling water levels on the Caspian and the silting up of both ports and at-sea portions of the NSR are already limiting Russia’s export capacities. These issues are even triggering conflicts with neighbors and allies Moscow hoped to keep sweet. The silting up of the Caspian has advanced so far that Moscow’s ability to use it as a north–south corridor to Iran has been constrained. Currently, only smaller ships or more lightly loaded larger ones can now make this passage (see EDM, March 18, 2025; Fond Strategicheskoi Kul’tury, February 8). As this has happened, tensions have increased between Russia and its neighbors who are demanding a say in how the Russian government manages the flow of the Volga, which feeds the waters of the Caspian (see EDM, June 3, 2025; Versia, August 4, 2025). The declining water level of the Caspian is also reducing the relative power of the Russian Navy’s Caspian Flotilla compared with the navies of other littoral countries, which have smaller but more numerous ships (see EDM, June 24, 2021, January 27). At the same time, the situation on the NSR is, if anything, even more a matter of concern. Few of the ports along it are deep enough to handle larger container ships. Now, given the influx of sediment from the mainland as a result of the accelerated melting of permafrost, there are some places on the sea lane of the NSR itself not deep enough for such ships, which are larger, heavier, and with deeper drafts than most cargo vessels, to pass safely (The Moscow Times, August 26). Until Moscow can build more dredging vessels or until it decides to seek to have the PRC play an even larger role in the Arctic than it has up to now, such bottlenecks are going to put a crimp on plans to ramp up the volume of shipping of finished goods as opposed to bulk cargo in the Arctic.

These three long-term problems have now been eclipsed and exacerbated by a more immediate one that Moscow cannot ignore. Ukraine has now recognized Russia’s water shortage problems as a serious chokepoint and, a month ago, began targeting Russia’s water supply networks. This move could turn Russia’s water problems into a major political crisis in Moscow (The Moscow Times, August 12).