Oil has begun leaking again from the bow section of tanker Volgoneft-239, which sank in the Kerch Strait in December 2024, according to the Russian open-source intelligence project SkyEye, which analyzed satellite imagery from early July 2026.
Greenpeace confirmed to the BBC that petroleum products have been leaking in the area regularly since early July. Satellite images almost constantly show oil slicks 2–3 to 8–10 kilometers (roughly 1 to 6 miles) long, the group said.
Metal sarcophagi were built over both sunken tankers to isolate them and later pump out the fuel oil, SkyEye noted.
The current leak may be connected to rising water temperatures in the Black Sea, the warming of the fuel oil, and the migration of lighter fractions through gaps in the joints — as well as the work to pump petroleum products out of the tankers, SkyEye suggested.
The tankers Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 were wrecked in a severe storm in the Kerch Strait in December 2024. They were carrying about 9,200 tons of fuel oil in total, according to emergency services, and the spill contaminated dozens of kilometers of coastline in Krasnodar Krai, prompting authorities to declare all beaches in Anapa unfit for swimming in the summer of 2025. They reopened to tourists in 2026.
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