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An emergency task force arrived in southern Russia Krasnodar region on Sunday as an oil leak in the Kerchstraat of two storm surge tankers continues to spread a month after it was first discovered, officials said.
The task force, which includes Minister of Emergency Situations Alexander Kurenkov, was established after the Russian president Vladimir Putin On Friday, authorities called for a heightened response to the spill, calling it “one of the most serious environmental challenges we have faced in recent years.”
Kurenkov said that “the most difficult situation” has developed near the port of Taman in the Krasnodar region, where fuel oil continues to leak into the sea from the damaged part of the tanker Volgoneft-239.
Kurenkov was quoted by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti as saying that the remaining oil will be pumped out of the back of the tanker.
The Emergencies Ministry said on Saturday that more than 155,000 tonnes of contaminated sand and soil had been collected since oil spilled from two tankers during a storm four weeks ago into the Kerch Strait, which separates the Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula from the Krasnodar- region.
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Russian-installed officials in Ukraine’s partially Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia region said Saturday that the mazut — a low-grade heavy oil product — had reached the Berdyansk Spit, about 145 kilometers (90 miles) north of the Kerch Strait. It contaminated an area 14 1/2 kilometers (9-miles) long, Moscow-installed Gov. Yevgeny Balitsky wrote on Telegram.
Russian-appointed officials in Moscow-occupied Crimea declared a regional emergency last weekend after oil was found off the coast of Sevastopol, the peninsula’s largest city, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the Kerch Strait.
Responding to Putin’s call for action, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi accused Russia of “starting to demonstrate its supposed ‘concern’ only after the scale of the disaster became too clear was to hide the dire consequences.”
“Russia’s practice of first ignoring the problem, then admitting its inability to solve it, and finally leaving the entire Black Sea region alone with the consequences is yet another proof of its international irresponsibility,” Tykhyi said Friday.
The Kerch Strait is an important global shipping route, providing passage from the Inland Sea of Azov to the Black Sea. It has also been a major point of conflict between Russia and Ukraine after Moscow annexed the peninsula in 2014.
In 2016, Ukraine took Moscow to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, where it accused Russia of trying to illegally seize control of the territory. In 2021, Russia will close the strait for several months.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, described the oil spill last month as a “large-scale environmental disaster” and called for additional sanctions on Russian tankers.
& copy 2025 The Canadian Press
