Fuel spilt by two Russian tankers in December could wash ashore in Ukraine, the navy fears.
The Kyiv Independent quoted Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk as saying that the Kerch Strait slick may reach the southern coast in the Mykolaiv and Odesa areas.
Last month, the 4,800-dwt Volgoneft 212 (built 1969) broke in two and sank during a fierce storm while it was in the waterway, which connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov.
On the same day, the 4,800-dwt Volgoneft 239 (built 1973) ran aground and then sank.
“The current direction indicates that, most likely, the oil can reach our Odesa and Mykolaiv oblasts’ coasts,” Pletenchuk said on national television.
Greenpeace Ukraine warned that the spill might cause “significant” environmental damage to the shoreline.
Pletenchuk added that Russian civilian vessels are still transiting the Kerch Strait because “without oil exports and subsequent profits, it will be even more difficult for them to wage this war”.
Both tankers were owned by Russia’s Volgotanker Volzhski Oil Shipping.
Officials in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai region declared a state of emergency after oil began washing up on the beach.
It also reached Russian-occupied Crimea.
Residents in Krasnodar posted footage of birds injured by the spill and unable to fly.
Clean-up efforts began after Russian President Vladimir Putin described the accidents as an environmental disaster.
At a press conference last month, he pointed the blame at the ships’ masters.
“Law enforcement bodies will give an assessment of the actions of the ships’ captains. I was informed that the captains violated regulations by not taking shelter in time,” he said, according to the government’s TASS news service.
“Some vessels did take shelter, and they are fine. And these ones did not. Moreover, they anchored where they shouldn’t have.”
