What remains of ecological advocacy in Russia rests on the shoulders of under-resourced activists like teenager Egor Chastukhin. She records the odour and its yellowish colour as two other teenage activists, Alexei Zetkin and Yakov Demidov, look on. And since an unprecedented crackdown on dissent launched after Russia's full-scale military intervention in Ukraine, their future is in doubt. In November 2021, Egor and his friend Alexei, then high school students, tested the water discharged by the paper factory. After the factory, activists and AFP journalists visited a landfill outside Penza, a jumble of rotting vegetables, batteries and medical waste emitting toxic fumes.

Source: News 24 August 28, 2023 13:35 UTC