2024 Black Sea oil spill

2024 Kerch Strait oil spill
Location	Southern mouth of the Kerch Strait, entering into the Black Sea
Coordinates	45°04′18″N 36°35′53″E / 45.07167°N 36.59806°E / 45.07167; 36.59806
Date	15 December 2024
Cause
Cause	Inclement weather Potential safety breaches
Casualties	Fatalities One crew member killed One volunteer potentially killed by inhalation of toxic fumes[a] Injuries 146 volunteers, three of which were hospitalised[b]
Operator	Volgotanker (according to databases)[c] Volgoneft-212 KamaTransOil Kama Shipping Volgoneft-239 Volgotransneft
Spill characteristics
Volume	Estimated 2,400 or 5,000 tonnes of mazut
Area	Black Sea Kerch Strait Sea of Azov
Shoreline impacted	Western Krasnodar Krai All but northern Crimea Berdiansk spit and a spit to the east

Early in the morning of 15 December 2024, two Russian Project 1577 Volgoneft oil tankers, Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239, were caught in a storm just south of the Kerch Strait. Volgoneft-212, which was reportedly carrying about 4,900 tonnes of mazut, broke in two and sank, resulting in an oil spill and the death of one crew member. Volgoneft-239 was damaged, causing her to drift for several hours until she ran aground near the Port of Taman, Krasnodar Krai. She, too, began leaking oil.

Both ships still had some of their cargo intact and the oil leak on Volgoneft-239 was stopped by the next day, with an estimated spillage of either 2,400 or 5,000 tonnes.^[d] Reports of puddles of oil making landfall between the Crimean Bridge and the town of Anapa began on 17 December, with about 37 miles (60 kilometres) of coastline becoming polluted. As a result, a state of emergency was declared in the Anapsky and Temryuksky Districts that day. Further declarations occurred across the entirety of Krasnodar Krai on 25 December, federally the following day and in Crimea by 28 December.

The incident was noted as the first spillage of mazut in history by the Russian Ministry of Transport, a substance which the organisation noted had "no proven methods for removing it from the water column" due to its properties. It was later labelled as the "worst ecological disaster of the 21st century" by Viktor Danilov-Danilyan, head of the Water Problems Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and ex-minister of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

Separate criminal cases were opened by Russia into both ships for potential maritime safety breaches, though the case for Operational-Tactical-212 had an additional charge for negligent homicide. Both captains were charged on 18 December, with the captain of Volgoneft-212 being placed under investigative custody and the captain of Volgoneft-239 being placed under house arrest for two months each.
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