Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk confirmed a major oil spill in the eastern Black Sea in territory controlled by Russia, he told RBC-Ukraine on Sept. 3.
According to him, oil was spilled near the eastern coast of the sea over “a fairly large area.”
He suggested the spill came from a vessel navigating in a Russian-controlled zone.
The spill was first reported on Aug. 29 and was said to have occurred during cargo operations with a tanker.
On Sept. 1, Russian propagandists claimed that more than 10 tons of oil products had been spilled near Novorossiysk. Russian media reported a slick covering about 350 square kilometers.
On Sept. 2, the monitoring channel Crimean Wind wrote that an oil slick of 14 square kilometers was moving toward occupied Crimea. It had separated from the main slick of 211 square kilometers, according to satellite images.