The oil spill from the crashed Russian tankers has spread to the Sea of Azov and reached the shores of the Zaporizhzhia region in Ukraine, which is partially occupied by Russia, an official representative of Moscow announced, NOVA reported.
Two aging tankers were hit by storms in mid-December in the Kerch Strait between Crimea and southern Russia, with one breaking up and sinking and the other running aground.
“At this point, fuel oil has been discovered on the Azov coast,“ Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-installed head of the occupied part of Zaporizhia Oblast, said on Telegram.
The official said an oil slick measuring more than 14km long had been found on the Berdyansk Spit - a long strip of land jutting into the Sea of Azov near the port city of Berdyansk - containing “small fragments of solid oil fractions“.
Another, much smaller patch was found off another spit to the east, he added.
This week, President Vladimir Putin criticized efforts to clean up the oil that has been spread east to southern Russian beaches and west to the Crimean city of Sevastopol.
Putin called the cleanup “obviously insufficient” after the spill contaminated thousands of tons of sand and soil. It also killed seabirds and mammals.
On Friday, Russia said more oil was leaking from a tanker stuck near the coast. The two ships were carrying more than 9,000 tons of fuel oil.