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Two Russian oil tankers with 29 crew on board were severely damaged in the Black Sea, causing an oil spill, Russian authorities said.
Images released by Russia’s Southern Transport Prosecutor’s Office showed one of the tankers split in half and sinking in the middle of a strong storm, with streaks of oil visible in the water.
At least one crew member was reportedly killed. The second ship was said to have been left adrift after sustaining damage and conflicting reports suggested it may have run aground later.
The incident took place in the Kerch Strait, which separates Russia from Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014.
President Vladimir Putin ordered the creation of a task force to address the incident, headed by Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Savelyev, and authorities are investigating for criminal negligence.
A rescue and clean-up operation involving tugboats, helicopters and more than 50 people is said to be underway.
“Today, as a result of a storm in the Black Sea, two oil tankers, Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239, sank,” the Russian federal maritime and river transport agency, Rosmorrechflot, wrote in a statement.
“On board the ships there were crews of 15 and 14 people. The accident caused a spill of oil products,” he continues.
Michelle Bockmann, an analyst at shipping industry magazine Lloyd’s List, said the two vessels are owned by the Volgatanker company and had a carrying capacity of around 3,500 tonnes of oil each.
The tankers are relatively small, Bockmann told the BBC. He said a tanker used for international trade in Russian crude oil typically has a much larger carrying capacity, around 120,000 deadweight tons.
He said the affected tankers were likely used to transport oil through Russia’s rivers or in coastal waters.
The full extent of the oil spill and the exact fate of both ships are still unclear.
The Kerch Strait is a key route for Russian grain exports and is also used for exports of crude oil, fuel oil and liquefied natural gas.
In 2007, another oil tanker, the Volgoneft-139, split in half during a storm while anchored off the Kerch Strait, spilling more than 1,000 tons of oil.
Russian oil imports have been heavily sanctioned by Ukraine’s allies since the Kremlin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In recent years, Russia has been accused of using a so-called ghost fleet of tankers, which are often poorly maintained and lack adequate insurance, to transport oil and evade sanctions, although Bockmann said it did not appear that the tankers involved in the Sunday’s incident were part of that fleet.
