Russia is forming an emergency response team as the Kerch Strait oil spill continues to spread

Emergency crews arrived in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region on Sunday as an oil spill in the Kerch Strait from two storm-hit tankers continued a month after it was first discovered, officials said.

The task force, which includes Emergencies Minister Alexander Kurenkov, was formed after Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday urged the administration to step up the response to the spill, calling it “one of the biggest environmental challenges we have faced in recent years.”

Kurenkov said the “most serious situation” occurred near the port of Taman in the Krasnodar region, where fuel oil continued to flow into the sea from the wreckage of the Volgoneft-239 tanker.

Kurenkov was quoted as saying by Russian news agency RIA Novosti that the remaining oil would be removed from the back of the ship.

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

Officials stationed in Russia’s Zaporizhzhia region, which is part of Ukraine, said on Saturday that mazut – a heavy, low-grade oil product – had reached the Berdyansk Spit, about 145 kilometers (90 miles) north of the Kerch Strait. Contaminated area 14 1/2-kilometer (9-mile) long, Gov. Moscow-based Yevgeny Balitsky wrote on Telegram.

Russian-appointed officials in Moscow-controlled Crimea declared a regional emergency last weekend after oil was found off the coast of Sevastopol, the peninsula’s largest city, 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the Kerch Strait.

Responding to Putin’s call for action, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi accused Russia of “starting to show its alleged ‘concern’ only after the magnitude of the crisis became too obvious to hide its negative consequences.”

“Russia’s habit of first ignoring the problem, then admitting that it cannot solve it, and finally leaving the Black Sea region alone with the consequences is another proof of its irresponsibility to the world,” Tykhyi said on Friday.

The Kerch Strait is an important global shipping lane, providing a route from the inland Sea of ​​Azov to the Black Sea. It has also been a key point of conflict between Russia and Ukraine after Moscow annexed the peninsula in 2014.

In 2016, Ukraine took Moscow to the Supreme Court of Arbitration, where it accused Russia of trying to take control of the territory illegally. In 2021, Russia closed the strait for several months.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, described last month’s oil spill as a “major natural disaster” and called for increased sanctions on Russian tankers.