Moscow’s Kerch Oil Spill Kills Endangered Dolphins – Environmentalists

More than 30 dolphins – including the endangered Azov species – have died around the Kerch Strait following an oil spill from two Russian tankers, environmentalists said on Sunday.

Russia’s Volgoneft-212 and the Volgoneft-239 were hit by a storm on Dec. 15 in the Kerch Strait linking Russian-occupied Crimea to the southern Russian Krasnodar region, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) from occupied Sevastopol.

Russia’s Delfa Dolphin Rescue and Research Center said 32 dolphins died days after the incident, AP News reported.

“Judging by the condition of the bodies, most likely the majority of these cetaceans died in the first 10 days after the disaster. And now the sea continues to wash them up,” the center said in a Telegram announcement on Sunday.

It added that most of the dead dolphins were from the endangered Azov species.

“The ones that suffered were mainly Azov cetaceans, which have always been the most vulnerable cetaceans,” it added.

There are speculations that the sank tankers belonged to Russia’s “shadow fleet” that helped Moscow transport oil whilst bypassing Western sanctions, which did so by utilizing older, uninsured vessels.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin has called the tanker spills an “ecological disaster.” Hundreds of volunteers have been deployed to scoop up contaminated soil from beaches in Crimea and along Russia’s southern coast.

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The oil has reached the shore of Russian-occupied Sevastopol, with Russia’s emergencies ministry claiming to have removed around 78,000 tons of contaminated soil and sand from local beaches as of Friday.

Russia’s transport ministry said the type of fuel oil from the tankers was particularly hard to clean because it is dense and heavy and does not float on the surface.

However, Iryna Babanina, a researcher at the UK-based Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS), said a lack of equipment had hampered Russian clean-up operations.