Ukrainian Navy confirms oil spill in Black Sea: Details revealed

“We can confirm the fact that oil or oil products of an unidentified type have been spilled over quite a large area,” Pletenchuk said.

According to the Ukrainian Navy Spokesperson, the spill likely occurred in the eastern Black Sea, near the eastern coastline.

“Most likely from one of the vessels navigating in this area under the control of the Russian Federation,” Pletenchuk noted, adding a warning to visitors of the affected waters, “not to smoke directly in the sea.”

Oil slick drifting toward Crimea

The spill was first reported on August 29 during cargo operations with a tanker at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s marine terminal in Novorossiysk, Russia. Initial reports said the contamination covered tens of square kilometers.

Russian propagandists later claimed that at least 10 tons of oil products had leaked, creating a slick of about 350 square kilometers drifting toward occupied Crimea.

Photo: An oil slick is moving towards occupied Crimea after a leak near Novorossiysk (t.me/Crimeanwind)

Currently, the pollution is concentrated near Anapa, while the slick continues moving toward the occupied peninsula, passing south of the Kerch Strait.

According to the Crimean Wind monitoring channel, most of the oil has already been washed ashore in Russia’s Krasnodar region. The main slick stretches 100 km along the coast from Novorossiysk to the Taman Peninsula, covering 211 sq km. A separate slick of 14 sq km has detached and is also drifting toward Crimea.

This is the second major Black Sea oil spill in less than a year.

In December 2024, a severe storm in the Kerch Strait caused two Russian tankers, Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239, to leak between 2,400 and 8,000 tons of fuel oil, triggering a large-scale environmental disaster that eventually reached Ukraine’s Odesa region.

For more details, read our article on the topic.