Badly damaged Russian tankers carrying thousands of tons of fuel spill oil near Black Sea

By Catherine Nicholls, Maria Kostenko and Billy Stockwell, CNN

(CNN) — Two Russian tankers carrying thousands of tons of fuel were badly damaged in stormy weather near the Black Sea over the weekend, leading to an oil spill, according to Russian state media.

The Volgoneft 212 and Volgoneft 239 vessels were in the Kerch Strait between mainland Russia and annexed Crimea when they got into peril on Sunday, with winds in the area reaching up to 45 mph (70 kph).

Greenpeace Ukraine told CNN Monday that 3,700 tons of oil had so far spilled into the sea, citing Russian sources.

They added that this was significantly more than a similar spill in 2007, which led to contamination of both coastlines of the Kerch Strait and affected thousands of birds and marine life for years.

Video circulating on unofficial Ukrainian and Russian Telegram channels appeared to show one large ship snapped in two, with water spilling over the edge of the top deck of the vessel as choppy waves rocked it from side to side.

The bow of a ship, seen in the background of the video, was broken off and appeared just above the water line. Crew members could be seen wearing lifejackets as the camera spun around.

CNN has been unable to independently verify the location of the video.

Russian state media TASS reported that the Volgoneft 212 tanker had its bow torn off in the storm. One of the vessel’s crew members died in the incident, it said.

Volgoneft 239 was also damaged and ran aground near the port of Taman in Russia’s Krasnodar region, TASS said. Some 14 people were rescued from the vessel.

The tankers were carrying more than 9,000 tons of oil, emergency services reported, according to TASS. Some of this oil spilled into the Kerch Strait, which specialists were preparing to clean up, it said.

In a bid to dodge sanctions, Russia has been known to send oil to countries like China, India and Turkey by transferring it from one ship to another in international waters. Some of these vessels will leave Russia from ports on the Black Sea, traveling to the Mediterranean, where they will illegally turn off their transponders to bypass strict rules governing this type of oil transfer.

On Monday, the European Union adopted new measures to specifically target Putin’s “shadow fleet” of tankers, subjecting them to a port access ban and a “ban on provision of a broad range of services related to maritime transport.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the decision to target the fleet, which he says supports Russia’s energy sector and helps to transport military equipment. There are now sanctions on 52 additional vessels, bringing the total to 79, he added.

“Russia’s war machine runs on oil. Without multibillion-dollar oil revenues, Putin would not have been able to reject real negotiations or ruin international peace and security for so many years,” he said in a statement posted on X.

Dmytro Pletenchuk, Ukraine’s navy spokesperson, accused Russia of prioritizing the transfer of oil over safety. “These are quite old vessels. Each of them is 50 years old or more. That is why the Russians have once again violated everything they could have violated,” he said Sunday.

“Transferring Russian oil and other fuels and lubricants is more important to them than complying with the safety requirements for civilian shipping,” he added.

This weekend’s oil spill “has the potential to be serious,” Greenpeace Ukraine said in a statement published on Sunday, especially given the area’s weather conditions, which could make the leak “extremely difficult to contain.”

The impact of the spill could also depend on the type of oil the vessels were carrying, Paul Johnston, head of Greenpeace Research Laboratories, said in the statement. Heavy residual fuel oils would cause more damage than other substances, he said.

The region suffered a similar oil spill in November 2007, when five ships sank in storms in the Black Sea and the Azov Sea.

In that incident, strong winds and high surf caused the Volgoneft 139 to split in two, spilling up 560,000 gallons, or approximately 1,000 tons, of fuel oil.

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CNN’s Anna Chernova, Svitlana Vlasova and Monica Garrett contributed to this report.