Russian authorities are concealing the scale of an environmental disaster caused by fuel spills in the Black and Azov Seas following the sinking of its two tankers, the Ukrainian Center for National Resistance reports.
On 15 December, Russian oil tankers Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 sank in the Kerch Strait, spilling over 4,000 tons of fuel oil into the Black Sea. The damage caused by the incident is preliminarily estimated at $14 billion. A month after the disaster, the oil spill continued to spread and reached Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
“Russian authorities continue to cynically downplay the scale of the ecological disaster in the Black and Azov Seas caused by the fuel oil spill. Instead of taking real measures to mitigate the consequences of the accident, the occupiers claim there is ‘no threat’ and issue fake statements declaring the ‘compliance with standards’ of the caught fish,” stated the Center for National Resistance.
It noted that Russia’s official agencies, falsely claim in their statements that fish from the affected waters is allegedly completely safe.
“However, it is evident that these statements are yet another attempt to hide the catastrophic consequences of the pollution and avoid accountability for the chaos and destruction the occupiers have brought to our land,” the resistance center added.
It also emphasized that fuel oil does not dissolve in water, and contact with it can cause allergic reactions, eczema, or even chemical burns. Furthermore, full natural cleansing of the sea from the consequences of Putin’s regime’s actions could take up to 20 years.
Earlier, Olha Yukhymchuk, deputy minister of environmental protection and natural resources for European integration, said that since the start of Russia’s all-out war, Ukraine recorded over 7,000 environmental crimes, with damages exceeding €72.9 billion, according to Ukraine’s Ecology Ministry.
The official claimed that the data on environmental damage will form the basis for Ukraine’s green recovery efforts.
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