Crimea Facing Ecological Disaster After Deadly Oil Spil
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
MOSCOW/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, annexed by Russia a decade ago, still faced an ecological disaster Sunday from a major oil spill, two weeks after two tankers were hit by a storm in the Black Sea, killing one crew member, Russian officials announced.
One tanker sank, and another ran aground on December 15 in the Kerch strait between Russia and Crimean, prompting authorities to declare a state of emergency.
One crew member was killed after the Volgoneft 212 split in half, with 12 rescued, while all 14 crew aboard the Volgoneft 239, which ran aground 80 meters (262 feet) from the shore near the port of Taman, were also rescued, according to officials.
Both ships reportedly carried mazut, a low-grade heavy fuel oil used in various applications across the former Soviet Union and Iran, which they were transporting for the Russian Navy.
As the cleanup operation was underway, Russian President Vladimir Putin already called the oil spill an “ecological disaster” in a region that he claims is under full control of Russia.
Thousands of volunteers were mobilized for clean-up operations, but some Russian scientists and environmentalists criticized this as “insufficient.”
Natalia Gozak, director of the Greenpeace Ukraine group, warned that the environmental impact could be compared to the wide-scale flooding caused by the June 2023 explosion at the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine while it was under Russian control.
LARGE ZONE
Experts said the dam’s destruction flooded a zone the size of Kyiv, the capital, wiping out wildlife and more than half a million hectares of natural habitats.
According to authorities, the tankers in this month’s disaster had 9,200 tonnes of fuel oil on board, about 40 percent of which was feared to have spilled into the sea.
“The situation is truly critical,” acknowledged the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov.
“It is unfortunately impossible to calculate for the moment the extent of the environmental damage, but specialists are working regularly on it,” he said.
The Moscow-installed governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksionov, said on the social media platform Telegram he had declared a state of emergency “because of the oil products spill in the Kerch strait.”
On Saturday, Russia’s transport ministry said that “all polluted aquatic areas that have been identified have been cleaned” and “no recurring pollution has been detected.”
But the emergency situations minister, Alexander Kurenkov, was more cautious. He said: “The threat of a new fuel oil leak in the Black Sea from the tankers and spills on the coast persists.”
The disaster further raised concerns in Kyiv, which still hasn’t given up hope, at least publicly, that Crimea will one day be “returned” to Ukraine.
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