The article deals with environmental obstructions and limitations for a dynamic political and socioeconomic development of modern Russia. Environmental problems accumulated in the past decades, including problems that appeared in the "Soviet" period of the country's development, together with growing new environmental risks, become a serious obstacle to the progressive development of the country. Contemporary Russian manufacturing practices continue to use extensively anti-environmental obsolete technologies, which lead to increasing degradation of the natural environment and an increase in negative trends in the health of the population. The absence or limited use of remediation activities in extractive industries has led to the natural degradation of a number of territories in the country. Unfavorable socio-demographic characteristics of the development for modern Russia caused by the environmental factors hinder innovative development in all spheres of society in the present period; moreover, their increasing impact will be an obstacle to socio-economic development in the future. Additionally the article discusses long-term negative trends in the development of environmental policy and weakening of the ecological spectrum of civil society.