(AP) – Russian-appointed officials in Moscow-occupied Crimea announced a regional state of emergency Saturday after oil was detected on the coast of Sevastopol, the peninsula's largest city.
Fuel oil spilled from two tankers caught in a storm nearly three weeks ago in the Kerch Strait near eastern Crimea, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) from Sevastopol in the southwest of the peninsula.
“Today, a regional state of emergency was declared in Sevastopol,” regional governor Mikhail Razbodyaev wrote on Telegram.
Razbozaev said oil was discovered on four beaches in the region and local authorities worked with volunteers to “immediately remove it.”
“Let me emphasize that there is no major pollution on the coastline of Sevastopol,” he wrote.
Razbozaev's announcement came as fuel oil continued to wash ashore on the coastline 10 days after one tanker ran aground on December 15 and another was damaged and set adrift. This was done after announcing a state of emergency for the entire region.
Krasnodar Krai Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on Friday that more than 5,000 people were still working to clean up the spill.
Since the first spill, more than 86,000 tons of contaminated sand and soil have been removed along the region's coastline, he wrote on Telegram.
The ministry estimated on December 23 that a total of up to 200,000 tonnes of mazut, a heavy, low-quality petroleum product, may have been contaminated.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called the oil spill an “ecological disaster.”
The Kerch Strait, which separates the Russian-occupied Crimea and the Krasnodar region, is an important global shipping route, providing a passage from the Azov Inland Sea to the Black Sea.
The area is also a key point in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine since Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014. In 2016, Ukraine took Moscow to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, accusing Russia of trying to illegally seize control of the region. In 2021, Russia closed the strait for several months.
Mykhailo Podlyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's office, described last month's oil spill as a “massive environmental disaster” and called for further sanctions against the Russian tanker.
