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Cleanup operations continued in the Kerch Strait near Russian-occupied Crimea on Sunday, a week after at least 3,700 tons of low-quality fuel oil leaked from two Russian tankers hit by the storm.
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Russian news reports said that more than 7,500 people, many of them volunteers, raced to save wildlife and clean beaches damaged by mazut, a heavy, low-quality oil product.
By Sunday afternoon, more than 12,000 tons of contaminated soil had been removed along a 34-kilometre (21-mile) stretch of beach, Russia’s TASS news agency reported.
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Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said oil continued to flow along the coast of Crimea, despite announcing the previous night that a clean-up operation had been successfully completed off Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Russian authorities are still working to evaluate the consequences of the leak. Local scientist Tatiana Bely told Russian state media on Sunday that her team had discovered 11 dead dolphins whose airways were clogged with petroleum fuel.
According to the Russian Emergencies Ministry, a rescue operation was launched last Sunday after the Volgunft-212 plane ran aground and its nose was torn apart in stormy conditions. One sailor out of the 13-member crew was killed, officials said. The second tanker, Volgoneft-239, was also damaged and drifted adrift. The ship later ran aground near the port of Taman in the Krasnodar region and its crew of 14 were rescued.
Greenpeace Ukraine said on Tuesday that the oil spill affected at least 60 kilometers (37 miles) of coastline. The charity has not had a presence in Russia since 2023, when the Russian government classified it as an “undesirable organisation”.
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Some Russian media critical of the Kremlin, as well as Western media, have quoted Russian volunteers as saying that state support was insufficient as they confronted the oil spill. Some said they suffered from headaches, nausea and vomiting after spending hours inhaling toxic fumes.
The Kerch Strait separates the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula from Russia, and is an important global shipping route, providing passage from the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea.
It was also a major point of conflict between Russia and Ukraine after Moscow annexed the peninsula. In 2016, Ukraine filed a lawsuit against Moscow before the Permanent Court of Arbitration, accusing Russia of trying to illegally control the region. In 2021, Russia closed the strait for several months.
Mykhailo Podoliak, advisor to the chief of staff of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, described the oil spill as a “large-scale environmental disaster” of the war and called for additional sanctions on Russian tankers.
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