The issues of the current state of water bodies in the Russian Federation are considered and their comparative characteristic with other countries, mainly Western European ones, is given. By a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2018, a system of global indicators for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and targets for the period up to 2030 was approved, and one of these targets is devoted to the state of water bodies. Despite large water resources, Russia already has serious problems with the quality of water in water bodies and the degree of financing of water protection measures. The water quality of such rivers as the Neva and the Volga was very high a few decades ago, but now it causes serious concerns. For some ingredients, the concentration of pollutants exceeds the maximum allowable concentrations hundreds of times. Since the 1990s and up to the present time, the relative financing of water protection measures (as a percentage of GDP) in the Russian Federation has been constantly decreasing. The efficiency of the use of financial resources is also decreasing.