Russia forms an emergency task force as the oil spill continues to spread in the Kerch Strait – National

An emergency task force has arrived in southern Russia Krasnodar The area on Sunday due to an oil spill in Kerch Strait Pandemic from two tankers hit by the storm is still spreading a month after it was first detected, officials said.

The task force, which includes Emergency Situations Minister Alexander Korenkov, was formed after the Russian president Vladimir Putin On Friday, she called on authorities to intensify the response to the spill, describing it as “one of the most serious environmental challenges we have faced in recent years.”

Korenkov said the “most difficult situation” developed near the port of Taman in the Krasnodar region, where fuel oil continues to leak into the sea from the damaged part of the tanker Volgunft-239.

The official Russian RIA Novosti news agency quoted Korenkov as saying that the remaining oil will be pumped from the stern of the tanker.

The Emergencies Ministry said on Saturday that more than 155,000 tons of contaminated sand and soil had been collected since oil spilled from two tankers during a storm four weeks ago in the Kerch Strait, which separates Russian-occupied Crimea from the Krasnodar region.

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Russian officials in Ukraine’s partly Russian-occupied Zaporizhya region said on Saturday that mazut – a heavy, low-quality oil product – had arrived in the Berdyansk Spit region, about 145 kilometers (90 miles) north of the Kerch Strait. Moscow Governor Yevgeny Paletsky wrote on Telegram: It has polluted an area 14.5 kilometers (9 miles) long.

Russia-appointed officials in Moscow-occupied Crimea declared a regional state of emergency last weekend after oil was discovered on the beaches 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 spokesman Hiorhii Tykhi accused Russia of “beginning to show its alleged ‘concern’ only after the scale of the disaster became so clear that it would be difficult to hide its terrible consequences.”

“Russia’s practice of first ignoring the problem, then admitting its inability to solve it, and then leaving the entire Black Sea region alone with the consequences is further evidence of its international irresponsibility,” Tikhii 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 was also a major point of conflict between Russia and Ukraine after Moscow annexed the peninsula in 2014.

In 2016, Ukraine filed a lawsuit against Moscow before the Permanent Court of Arbitration, accusing Russia of trying to illegally control the region. In 2021, Russia closed the strait for several months.

Mykhailo Podoliak, advisor to the chief of staff of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, described last month’s oil spill as a “large-scale environmental disaster” and called for additional sanctions on Russian tankers.

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