Russian authorities in the Sevastopol region on the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea declared a regional state of emergency on Saturday after oil from damaged tankers washed ashore in Crimea’s largest city. Two Russian tankers sank in December during a storm in the Kerch Strait east of the peninsula. TASR informs according to the AP agency.
“Today, a regional state of emergency was declared in Sevastopol,” wrote Mikhail Razvozhayev, governor of Sevastopol, appointed by Moscow, on the Telegram social network. According to him, oil was found on four beaches in the area and local authorities, in cooperation with volunteers, quickly removed it. “Let me emphasize: in There is no massive pollution of the coast in Sevastopol,” wrote Razvozhaev.
The leak is an environmental disaster
The original river tankers Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 sank during a storm in the Kerch Strait about 250 kilometers from Sevastopol. According to the Russian Ministry of Transport, approximately 2,400 tons of heavy fuel oil leaked from them. The oil slick has since infested beaches in southern Russia’s Krasnodar region and adjacent Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.
President Vladimir Putin described the leak as an “ecological disaster”. The adviser to the Ukrainian president, Mykhaylo Podoľak, spoke in a similar vein, and at the same time called on the international community to impose additional sanctions on Russian tankers.
Ukraine called the oil spill “the largest in the Black Sea region in the 21st century” and accused Moscow of using ships unsuitable for harsh winter conditions. Volgoneft tankers were built in the 20th century primarily for the canals and navigable rivers of European Russia, for short distances at sea only under favorable conditions.
