Emergency task force arrived in southern Russia Krasnodar region on Sunday as an oil spill in the Kerch Strait from two tankers hit by the storm continues to spread a month after it was first detected, officials said.
This working group, which includes Emergency Situations Minister Alexander Kurenkov, was created after Russian President Vladimir Putin On Friday, he called on authorities to step up the response to the oil spill, calling it “one of the most serious environmental challenges we have faced in recent years.”
Kurenkov said “the most difficult situation” had developed near the port of Taman in the Krasnodar region, where fuel oil continues to flow into the sea from the damaged part of the Volgoneft-239 tanker.
Kurenkov reportedly told Russian news agency RIA Novosti that the remaining oil would be pumped from the tanker’s stern.
The Emergency Situations Ministry said Saturday that more than 155,000 tons of contaminated sand and soil have been collected since oil spilled from two tankers during a storm four weeks ago in the Kerch Strait, which separates the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula from the Krasnodar region.
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Russian officials in Ukraine’s partially Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia region said Saturday that mazut – a heavy, low-quality oil product – had reached the Berdyansk Spit, about 145 kilometers (90 miles) to the north. of the Kerch Strait. It contaminated an area 14 1/2 kilometers long, Moscow-based governor Yevgeny Balitsky wrote on Telegram.
Russian officials appointed in Moscow-occupied Crimea announced a regional emergency last weekend after oil was detected off the coast of Sevastopol, the peninsula’s largest city, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the Kerch Strait.
In response to Putin’s call for action, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi accused Russia of “starting to show its so-called ‘concern’ only after the The scale of the disaster has become too obvious to hide its terrible consequences.
“Russia’s practice of first ignoring the problem, then admitting its inability to resolve it, and finally leaving the entire Black Sea region alone with its consequences, is further evidence of its international irresponsibility,” Tykhyi said on Friday.
The Kerch Strait is an important global shipping route, providing passage from the Inland Sea of Azov to the Black Sea. It is also a key point in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine following Moscow’s annexation of the peninsula in 2014.
In 2016, Ukraine took Moscow to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, where it accused Russia of attempting to illegally take control of the region. In 2021, Russia closed the strait for several months.
Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, called last month’s oil spill a “large-scale environmental disaster” and called for additional sanctions against Russian oil tankers.
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