Against the background of global problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss and marine pollution, political confrontation can frustrate joint action to the point of non-implementation of already reached agreements. Consequently, we consider the role that environmental policy transfer driven by non-governmental experts can play at an informal level of collaboration when the formal policy level is weakened by tension. Studying the case of Germany and Russia, the authors evaluate the outcomes of three policy transfer projects in the field of environmental planning following the onset of the Crimean conflict in February 2014. By means of qualitative research, we can show that–despite ongoing political discord–substantive thematic cooperation is still being conducted “in the shadow of confrontation” with manifold positive impacts in the national and international context. This underlines the importance of establishing robust transnational expert networks that will be highly resilient even during troubled times.