Environmental disaster in Kerch Strait: Russian forces hinder cleanup efforts on the temporarily occupied Crimea – human rights advocate
The cleanup of the coastline of the temporarily occupied Crimea, which has been polluted by fuel oil leaked by wrecked Russian ships, is extremely challenging because Russian military forces have closed off the coastal zone, Krym.Realii, a Radio Liberty project, reported, citing an anonymous Crimean human rights advocate who wished to remain anonymous due to the persecution of activists by the occuppying authorities.
While Russian occupying authorities claim to seek a solution, “military priorities are prevailing over environmental ones,” according to the human rights advocate.
Krym.Realii said that after the Ukrainian military successfully landed special forces on Crimea’s western shore in 2023, the Russian military built a defence barrier and prohibited local residents and tourists from going to the majority of the beaches in the area.
Twenty-five days following the tanker disaster, Russian ruler Vladimir Putin instructed the establishment of a response team to address the fuel oil spill in the Black Sea, with operations based directly at the affected location. He characterized the spill in the Kerch Strait as a major environmental concern in recent years.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine considers Putin’s expressions of concern over the tanker accidents to be demonstrative.
“Only after the scale of the disaster became too obvious to conceal its horrific consequences did Russia begin to show its so-called ‘concern.’ The accidents involving the tankers ‘Volgoneft-212’ and ‘Volgoneft-239’ in the Kerch Strait, caused by the use of outdated vessels, confirm Russia’s inability to adhere to maritime safety standards,” the Ministry’s spokesperson, Heorhii Tykhyy, emphasised.
He also added that Russia is demonstrating international irresponsibility by initially ignoring the problem and then leaving the Black Sea region to deal with the aftermath of the accident alone.
The First Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, Olena Kramarenko, recently announced that Ukraine plans to file a lawsuit against Russia with international judicial institutions, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ), for violations of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
In the meanwhile, a new oil spill has been discovered in the Black Sea from the stern of one of the sunken Russian “Volgoneft” tankers, according to the Krasnodar Region Operational Headquarters. The vessel part was stranded in shallow waters near Taman in the Temryuk District.
Russian officials reported an active oil leak from the ship “Volgoneft 239”, though the full extent of the damage remains unknown. The spill from the stern of “Volgoneft-239” has allegedly already covered an area of approximately 2,800 square meters.
By way of background, on the morning of December 15, two Russian tankers, “Volgoneft 212” and “Volgoneft 239”, split in half and sank in the Kerch Strait, leaking fuel oil into the water.
Following the tanker accidents, Greenpeace Ukraine warned that the Russian militarization of the Black and Azov Seas is leading to a new environmental disaster.
On December 25, a state of emergency was declared in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai due to fuel oil pollution of the Black Sea coast.
Previously, Finnish authorities deemed the detained tanker that’s part of the fleet carrying Russian oil as not seaworthy after inspections onboard.
At the end of 2024, NGO Crimea SOS published a study providing a comprehensive overview of observed environmental changes in specific areas of Crimea, including Sevastopol, between 2022 and 2024, during Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
