This article provides an assessment of environmental policy-making in contemporary Russia, using the case of the 2006 Forest Code of the Russian Federation to evaluate the state’s ability to design, implement and enforce effective environmental legislation. The Forest Code provides a particularly interesting and valuable insight into some of the key problems facing environmental policy-making and the policy-making process more generally in Russia today, including issues such as state capacity, interdepartmental conflict, the quality of law, and the difficulties associated with the implementation of law. Each stage of the policy-making process in relation to the Forest Code will be examined, from the initial development and drafting, passage through parliament and final implementation. The case of the Forest Code reveals the inability of the state to design and draft effective legislation, its lack of commitment to environmental issues and its weak capacity in terms of imposing its preferences on the legislative process. The state has also been unable to implement and enforce this law successfully. As a result, it is very difficult to detect any real improvements in the management and protection of forests as a result of the 2006 Code.