Cities are considered key to addressing climate change. A substantial volume of scholarship is now available on urban climate transitions (focusing on social and technological change) and on the urban climate governance structures that underpin those transitions. The scholarship is, however, dominated by studies from European and Anglo-Saxon cities. Seeking to add insights from a currently underexplored world-region to this literature, the current article explores urban climate governance in the Russian Federation and focuses specifically on Moscow and St. Petersburg. In doing so, the article also explores the analytical power of the dominant urban climate transitions literature for explaining urban climate transitions outside European and Anglo-Saxon countries.