Oil slick from Russian tanker spill reaches Crimea

NEWS WIRES

3 January 2025 at 8:57 am·1-min read

A photo released on December 17, 2024 showing rescuers responding to an oil spill along the coastline of the Black Sea, caused by the wreck of two oil tankers.

Oil from two Russian tankers, which sank and ran aground in the Kerch Strait after a storm in December, has spread 250 kilometres to reach the coast of Sevastopol in Crimea, Moscow-installed officials said on Friday.

Oil from two ageing and damaged Russian tankers -- one of which sank -- was detected on Friday off the coast of Sevastopol, the largest city in Moscow-annexed Crimea.

The Volgoneft-212 and the Volgoneft-239 were hit last month by a storm in the Kerch Strait, which links Crimea to the southern Russian Krasnodar region and is about 250 kilometres (155 miles) from Sevastopol.

One sank and the other ran aground, pouring around 2,400 tonnes of mazut, or heavy fuel oil, into the surrounding waters, according to Russia's transport ministry.

"A small oil slick reached Sevastopol today," the Moscow-installed head of the city, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said on Telegram, publishing a video of the oil, a thick substance known as mazut.

He said it was around 1.5 metres in width and length.

Sevastopol, with a population of over half a million, is the historic home of the Russian navy's Black Sea fleet, heavily targeted by Ukraine throughout the nearly three-year conflict.

(AFP)

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