Meeting of Mikhail Mishustin with the Head of the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring Igor Shumakov

Published on: 2026-04-02

Source: Government of the Russian Federation – Government of the Russian Federation –

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The head of Roshydromet informed the Chairman of the Government about the expected nature of the spring flood in 2026, the current situation and the forecast of the timing and maximum water rise levels, as well as the provision of specialized agencies, regional authorities with forecasts and flood situation monitoring data. In addition, the use of AI capabilities services, unmanned aviation systems and space apparatus in the work was discussed.

From the transcript:

M. Mishustin:Good afternoon, Igor Anatolyevich!

Forecasts of Roshydromet are used at all levels of government, in agribusiness, construction, other industries, and of course, by citizens—for timely response to weather changes.

Along with the development of the economy, the value of observing natural conditions, scientifically substantiated conclusions, prepared on the basis of collected data, is constantly growing. This, of course, requires responsible, professional approaches, continuous improvement, the search for new methods. Whole industries and the well-being of people depend on your work.

Last winter was snowy for a significant part of the Russian regions. This is good for the crops and future harvest, for the growth in production of hydroelectric power plants, which play a major role in the country’s energy balance. But in some places active melting is still continuing, which requires special attention to prevent the consequences of the spring flood.

Tell us how the work on providing service forecasts is going and how your service interacts with enterprises, regional authorities, and the relevant specialized departments.

I. Shumakov:Indeed, the flood season this year will be difficult. Rosgidromet, already on February 3, a month earlier than the usual date, released and sent to all heads of the subjects of the Russian Federation a preliminary assessment of the flood season. On March 11, we published the forecast—a so-called report on the expected nature of the spring flood in 2026. We received feedback and are working with colleagues.

What awaits us in the near future? In April, up to 15 days earlier than normal, the thawing of rivers in the north and east of the European part of our country will begin. The thawing of rivers in the Urals and southern regions of Siberia and the Far East will begin. Significantly earlier than usual (by 10 days) the thawing of rivers in Kamchatka will occur. In May, the thawing of rivers will spread to the northernmost territories of the European part of our country and will continue on the largest rivers of Siberia and the Far East.

It should be noted that during the process of uncovering the northern rivers and rivers of Siberia, ice jams are likely to form, which can lead to river flooding, up to and including the inundation of low-lying areas of populated places.

A detailed list of places with a risk of dangerous congestion formation has been provided by Roshydromet to authorities at all levels and interested organizations.

Talking about the forecast of the maximum flood levels, the department would like to note the following. Above normal maximum water levels are predicted this year in the Central, Volga, Ural, Siberian, and Far Eastern federal districts. There is a risk of flooding in coastal areas, including populated areas, reaching marks of an unfavorable event. Floodplains of rivers will be flooded, where, unfortunately, there is often existing development.

At the moment, intensive ice spring development has begun on the rivers of the Central, Volga, and southern Ural, Siberian federal districts, as well as in the Primorsky Krai of the Far Eastern federal district. Currently, a number of rivers in the listed regions are showing adverse level exceedances.

Everything listed above with details down to the settlement has been confirmed by our forecasts for February 3 and March 11. We continue to monitor the situation.

In addition to long-term flood forecasts, Rosgidromet carries out constant monitoring of the situation and issues warnings about the risk of flooding of settlements in the short-term (up to three days) and medium-term (five to seven days) perspective. For this, we use the GIS “Hydrology” developed by us, which allows automatic issuance of forecasts of the flood situation for most rivers in Russia.

Two years ago, when you were at our final board meeting, we presented the GIS as a development. But now it is already a system that is used at the armed forces of Rosgidromet and solves many tasks.

Since the moment of releasing information about the nature of the spring flooding, a series of meetings has taken place. During them, the Rosgidromet employees were provided with information about the most vulnerable points that Rosgidromet predicted. This information is primarily needed for preliminary response.

There is considerable and informational exchange with the Republic of Kazakhstan on the transboundary rivers Ural, Tobol, Ishim, Irtysh and with the People’s Republic of China on the Amur and Ussuri rivers, which we conduct with our colleagues. The exchange takes place practically online.

I would like to draw attention to the fact that the fight against floods includes not only monitoring and forecasting, but also a number of other measures aimed at reducing the negative consequences of flooding. These measures include clearing riverbeds and the areas under bridges, as well as floodplain territories. These are currently handled by local authorities. These preventive measures allow for a significant mitigation of the consequences of spring floods.

And now I would like to move on to the issues of forecasting fire hazard, which is also very important for our vast country. On February 3 and March 12 of this year, earlier than usual times, Roshydromet provided an assessment of fire hazard in the forests of the Russian Federation to all subjects of the Russian Federation and interested agencies. Primarily to Rosleshoz, to the information system, and to the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia. Territorial institutions of Roshydromet daily inform government authorities about the occurrence of high and extremely high fire hazard classes on the territory and areas of activity according to meteorological parameters.

As for the assessment itself, starting from April and up to September, the number of days with a high and extreme fire danger class in forests according to meteorological parameters will be higher in the Southern Federal District, in the south of the Central, Volga, Ural, Siberian Federal Districts, in the north of the North Caucasian Federal District, Transbaikalia and Yakutia. Only in October will the fire season begin to end.

In recent years, the duration of the fire-dangerous season according to meteorological parameters on the territory of the Russian Federation has been increasing. It begins earlier and ends later. This is primarily due to global climate change and other weather factors. Roshydromet responds to this situation by releasing forecast products at earlier dates. It also works closely throughout the fire-dangerous season with Roslesozascha, the Ministry of Emergency Situations (MChS), and other interested agencies and organizations.

We not only forecast but also participate in preventing fires. With the active support of the government of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), we are conducting an experiment on carrying out aviation operations to induce precipitation through active influence on weather processes in order to reduce fire hazard in the forest and to moisten the territories before the start of the fire-dangerous period. A high effectiveness of these operations has been found. On average, the amount of precipitation increased by 62%, which allowed minimizing damage from forest fires, including through early detection and warning.At the same time, the costs for artificial increase of sedimentation are many times lower than the costs for eliminating the consequences.

We also use this method for agricultural needs. Last year, in the Stavropol region, during the spring vegetation period of agricultural plants, work was carried out to artificially induce precipitation. On average, precipitation in the area where the work was conducted increased by 39%. The leadership of the Stavropol region noted that in 2025 the region gathered a record grain harvest. We also see our contribution to this common cause. This year, similar works have already begun in the Stavropol region. We plan to continue close interaction on this issue with the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia.

M. Mishustin:In recent years, the capabilities of the service have increased significantly. These include new supercomputer powers, the expansion of the scientific research fleet, and various unmanned systems. All of this is especially important for improving the quality of forecasts of weather and climatic phenomena, as well as for fundamental and applied research conducted within the department. How is this work progressing?

I. Shumakov:Mikhail Vladimirovich, we are not standing still. Artificial intelligence is going beyond auditing and into meteorological processes. And for us, this is a large amount of work that we have been conducting for more than one year already. And now we are already seeing its fruits. So, we use artificial intelligence when processing large amounts of data — when processing space images, forecasts, multimodal forecasts. At the Hydrometeorological Center of Russia, so-called ensemble forecasts are used, that is, five prognostic models are taken and a compilation is made. From them, a forecast is obtained for the upcoming day, three days, ten days. This method works very well.And he would not work so well if artificial intelligence did not help us.

Scientists at Rosgidromet have advanced considerably ahead. There is, it must be said, a certain competition among scientists of countries within the World Meteorological Organization, where we hold leading positions in the field of artificial intelligence.

What else do we do with the help of artificial intelligence? First of all, it helps us optimize the process of producing forecasts, which saves at least machine time on the supercomputer. Naturally, it also reduces the cost of production. And the load on the supercomputer using artificial intelligence can also be quite seriously regulated.

We also use unmanned systems that help us obtain primary information from the ground, from locations. We have 36 unmanned aerial vehicles in service. They are involved in flood monitoring. Last year, our hydrological institute, Roshydromet, monitored events in the Tyumen region on the border with Kazakhstan when critical events related to the spring flood were developing there. We also monitor avalanches and glaciers with unmanned vehicles.

But the largest application of artificial intelligence, naturally, is in the space industry, in processing the information we receive from our spacecraft. 75% of success in forecasting is the use of satellite data.

At present, thanks to the joint efforts of “Roscosmos” and Roshydromet, as well as with strong support from the Government of the Russian Federation, a large-scale domestic orbital grouping of 22 spacecraft has been created in the interest of Roshydromet.

Based on satellite data from these devices, we prepare unique information about the current forecast of the environmental state, which is used by many consumers, including in the interests of the security of our state.

The group by quantity and its characteristics is an unprecedented achievement. For the first time in the history of domestic cosmonautics, fundamentally new space systems were created. The first. These are four “Electro” spacecraft in geostationary orbit, which evenly cover the entire territory of the Russian Federation with observations. This group is necessary for weather analysis and forecasting, monitoring of hazardous hydrometeorological phenomena and other parameters that pose a threat to humans.

The formation of an orbital grouping of the space complex, consisting of four space vehicles “Ionosphere-M”, for monitoring the radiation environment and the Earth’s magnetic field, has been completed. Such a satellite grouping has been created for the first time in the history of domestic cosmonautics. Based on the data from this grouping, calculations are carried out to establish stable radio communication in the hard-to-reach regions of the Arctic and the Northern Sea Route. The accuracy of navigation of technical systems is improved.Information is in demand to provide civil aviation with the necessary data in the field of communication and navigation during air traffic operations. This is especially relevant during hazardous heliophysical phenomena, such as solar flares, magnetic storms, and others. For example, in 2025, 755 warnings about the deterioration of space weather on civil aviation flight routes were issued using this grouping.

Third. The subject of our special pride is two “Arktika” satellites in a highly elliptical orbit, thanks to which we can observe atmospheric processes in the Earth’s polar cap in real-time mode. We monitor the Arctic region of the Earth.

Such devices have also been created for the first time in the world. Their use is an unprecedented step in the development and expansion of the satellite global hydrometeorological observation system.

Thus, based on the spacecraft “Electro” and “Arktika”, the world’s largest Earth monitoring system with hydrometeorological observations has been created, with information update frequency every 15 minutes. Under sanction restrictions, this domestic system becomes irreplaceable.

Thanks to the joint efforts of the state corporation “Roscosmos” and Rosgidromet, we have a practically self-sufficient domestic group of space vehicles, which continues to develop in new directions. Thus, in particular, in the past two years, the “Condor” and “Obzor-R” spacecraft have been developed and launched into orbit, which allow monitoring of the Earth’s surface, flood conditions, and the Northern Sea Route even in cloudy conditions and at any time of day.

In order for Rosgidromet to completely abandon foreign sources of information, our colleagues from the rocket and space industry are developing new advanced space vehicles and instruments in accordance with the federal project “Satellite Communications and Earth Observation.”

We are also actively cooperating on the creation of small satellites in the interest of Rosgidromet. Higher education institutions participate in the development of the instruments, which allows students of non-technical profiles to gain invaluable experience even at this stage of their education. The data obtained from the satellites of the “Universat” group we are already mastering and using as additional data when conducting heliogeophysical monitoring – studying phenomena on the Sun, in the magnetosphere, ionosphere and upper atmosphere of the Earth.

Also, at present, geophysical data from the three satellites of the “Khors” system, developed by specialists from Bauman Moscow State Technical University, are already being used in operational work – the last of which was launched in December 2025.

Satellite information prepared by Roshydromet is, naturally, in high demand among various consumers. The demand for it in the country’s economy is growing. We thank our colleague from “Roscosmos” for his active work.

M. Mishustin:It is crucial here to make maximum use of the technological sovereignty advantages provided by the infrastructure being created. It is complex. The technological innovations that are currently being used and that we discussed with you several years ago seemed difficult to implement. But now it is a reality. An independent space group that makes it possible to create an image related to natural conditions in 15 minutes is practically a path to full sovereign capability in this area.

Please keep all these directions under personal control.

Please note; this information is raw content obtained directly from the source. It represents an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.