Rescue teams empty 1,500 tonnes of oil from Russian tanker

Rescue workers have successfully removed almost 1,500 tons of oil left onboard a tanker that ran aground last year in southern Russia, officials said Saturday. (AP/File)
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Updated 26 January 2025
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Rescue teams empty 1,500 tonnes of oil from Russian tanker

  • The mishap resulted in a devastating oil spill that damaged miles (kilometers) of coastline along the Black Sea
  • Two Russian ships, the Volgoneft-239 and the Volgoneft-212, were badly damaged in stormy weather in December

MOSCOW: Rescue workers have successfully removed almost 1,500 tonnes of oil left onboard a tanker that ran aground last year in southern Russia, officials said Saturday.

The mishap resulted in a devastating oil spill that damaged miles (kilometers) of coastline along the Black Sea.

Two Russian ships, the Volgoneft-239 and the Volgoneft-212, were badly damaged in stormy weather in December resulting in thousands of tonnes of low-grade fuel oil called mazut spilling into the Kerch Strait.

A crew from Russia’s Marine Rescue Service siphoned away the remaining 1,488 tonnes of oil left in the grounded Volgoneft-239 in a six-day operation, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Savelyev said Saturday in a post on the Russian government’s official Telegram channel.

Emergency Situations Minister Alexander Kurenkov announced that the damaged tanker would be drained earlier this month but workers found it was continuing to leak oil into the water.

The Volgoneft-239 will now be cleaned and prepared for being dismantled, Savelyev said. The fate of the second tanker, the Volgoneft-212, remains undecided after the boat sank beneath the waves.

So far, oil from the spill has washed up along beaches in Russia’s Krasnodar region, as well as in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions of Crimea and the Berdyansk Spit, some 145 kilometers (90 miles) north of the Kerch Strait. President Vladimir Putin earlier in January called the spill “one of the most serious environmental challenges we have faced in recent years.”

Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said Saturday that more than 173,000 tonnes of contaminated sand and soil have so far been collected by the weekslong cleanup effort, with thousands of volunteers joining the operation.


Changes to US security strategy ‘largely consistent’ with Russia’s vision: Kremlin

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Changes to US security strategy ‘largely consistent’ with Russia’s vision: Kremlin

MOSCOW: Russia has welcomed changes in the US National Security Strategy, saying the adjustments that marked a radical departure from Washington’s previous policy were “largely consistent” with Moscow’s vision.
Washington’s new National Security Strategy, published early Friday, took aim at allies in Europe, calling it over-regulated, lacking in “self-confidence” and facing “civilizational erasure” due to immigration.
The document stated that the United States would also prevent other powers from dominating but added: “This does not mean wasting blood and treasure to curtail the influence of all the world’s great and middle powers.”
Commenting on the new US strategy, the Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the current US administration was “fundamentally different from the previous ones.”
“The adjustments we’re seeing, I would say, are largely consistent with our vision,” Peskov said in an interview with state TV station Rossiya aired Sunday.
“President Trump is currently strong in terms of domestic political positions. And this gives him the opportunity to adjust the concept to suit his vision,” Peskov added.
The publication of the updated security strategy came as officials from Kyiv held talks in Florida with Trump’s envoys on the US-drafted plan to end the near four-year war in Ukraine.
Three days of talks produced no apparent breakthrough.
President Volodymyr Zelensky committed to further negotiations toward “real peace,” as Russia in the early hours of Saturday launched another series of drone and missile strikes at Ukraine.
Zelensky is due to meet with European leaders — French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz — in London on Monday to take stock of the negotiations.