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Resolution of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation dated 17 June 2026 No. 40-П in the case concerning the review of the constitutionality of paragraph 6 of part 1 of Article 83 of the Forest Code of the Russian Federation in connection with a request from the Government of Magadan Region. The Resolution held constitutional, in an interpretation guaranteeing reimbursement of the constituent entity’s expenses from the reserve of subventions, the provision transferring federal powers to protect forests to the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.
On an action brought by an environmental prosecutor, the courts ordered the ministry and the regional Avialesookhrana institution to equip forest-firefighting units with machinery and equipment. A dispute arose as to which funds—subventions from the federal budget or the constituent entity’s own budget—should finance this when the subvention was insufficient. The Government of Magadan Region challenged the provision transferring the powers by way of a constitutional-law request.
The Constitutional Court recalled that the forest fund is the public property of the multinational people of Russia and a special type of federal property subject to a special legal regime (Article 9 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation; previously, Resolutions No. 1-П of 1998 and No. 21-П of 2016). The environmental function, including the protection of forests from fires, is common to all levels of public authority, requiring their interaction, including on matters of nationwide importance (Resolution of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation dated 22 September 2023 No. 45-П).
Environmental protection and forest legislation fall within the joint jurisdiction (Article 72 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation). The federal legislature may transfer the exercise of federal powers to the state authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. However, such a transfer does not alter the allocation of the powers or relieve the federal level of responsibility for their implementation and proper funding (Resolution of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation dated 30 May 2023 No. 27-П and Resolution of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation dated 17 July 2025 No. 29-П).
As a general rule, the financial provision for transferred powers is funded from subventions from the federal budget (Federal Law No. 414-ФЗ, Budget Code of the Russian Federation). The constitutionally mandated need for coordinated interaction within a unified system of public authority requires legislative establishment of organizational, legal and financial mechanisms. Execution of a judicial decision is an integral element of the right to judicial protection (Article 46 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation).
On this basis, the Court identified the universally binding constitutional and legal meaning of the provision and distinguished between two situations. The first is the bona fide exhaustion of a subvention: where immediate execution of a judicial decision is necessary, the constituent entity may (and, in the event of an immediate and unavoidable fire risk, must) use its own property, and the expenses are reimbursed as a matter of priority from the undistributed reserve of the current year’s subventions or in the following financial year, provided that the constituent entity complied with the rules governing the expenditure and accounting of the subvention funds.
The second situation is spending a subvention contrary to the purposes and amounts agreed with the authorized federal body (or failing to take reasonable and sufficient measures to obtain approval), where this was not caused by unforeseeable forestry, climatic or other conditions. In this case, the Russian Federation may refuse, in whole or in part, to provide financial support for execution of the judicial decision; it is then executed from the budget of the constituent entity, which may challenge the refusal in court.
The constituent entities of the Russian Federation must not fund transferred federal powers to protect forests from their own budgets where the subvention has been exhausted in good faith. The constitutional and legal meaning of the provision is universally binding and precludes any other interpretation.
For the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, the Resolution precludes the practice of charging the expenses of transferred federal powers to the regional budget where the subvention has been exhausted in good faith: a mechanism applies for priority reimbursement from the undistributed reserve or in the following financial year. This reduces the risk that the inaction of regional authorities will be held unlawful solely because the shortfall in funding was not covered.
For federal bodies (Rosleskhoz and financial authorities), a criterion has been established for a lawful refusal of funding: spending the subvention for an unauthorized purpose or without the required approval. Such refusal must be reasoned and may be challenged by the constituent entity in court. This provides structure to disputes concerning the funding of transferred powers.
Since the meaning identified by the Court has been declared universally binding and precludes any other interpretation, the legal position applies not only to forest protection but also serves as guidance for funding other federal powers transferred to constituent entities where a conflict arises between insufficient subvention funding and the obligation to execute a judicial act.
This analysis was prepared on the basis of the CasusLegal database (case law of the highest courts of the Russian Federation). The titles of the cited decisions link to their full texts in CasusLegal.