The St. Petersburg office of Bellona Foundation (ERC Bellona) was founded in April 1998 following the trials of such activists as Fedorov–Mirzoyanov, Nikolai Shchur, and Alexander Nikitin, who had begun to distribute information about environmental threats and were being persecuted by the very agencies responsible for causing these threats.

ERC Bellona's stated goals were to protect unspoiled natural resources and reliable environmental information.

[1] Each year, ERC Bellona would carry out at least five different projects, the results of which were published on its website, in the form of annual reports.

[1] The organization closed its offices in Russia, in November 2022, citing the invasion of Ukraine as a major reason for the closure.

[2] The staff of ERC Bellona consisted of permanent employees, part-time personnel, and volunteers.