The operation to clean up oil that has washed ashore from two oil tankers was criticized by Russian scientists on Wednesday, who said that it lacked the necessary tools.
The Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239, two Russian oil tankers, were struck by a storm in the Kerch Strait on December 15; one of them ran aground and the other sank.
Southern Russia and the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, are divided by the strait.
According to Russian authorities, over 40% of the 9,200 tonnes of fuel oil that the ships were transporting may have leaked into the ocean.
President Vladimir Putin last week called it an “ecological disaster”.
Thousands of volunteers were mobilised to remove oil-sogged sand from nearby beaches.
But scientists say the volunteers don’t have needed equipment.
“There are no bulldozers there, no trucks. Practically no heavy machinery,” said Viktor Danilov-Danilyan at a news conference.
Danilov-Danilyan is the scientific head of the Water Problems Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and served as Russia’s environment minister in the 1990s.
The volunteers have only “shovels and useless plastic bags that rip apart”, he said.
“While the bags wait to finally be collected storms arrive and they end up back in the sea. It’s unthinkable!”
Public criticism of the authorities is rare in Russia.
Russia’s natural resources ministry warned Monday that up to 200,000 tons of sand might have been oil-contaminated.
Governor Veniamin Kondratyev of the Krasnodar area stated on Wednesday that about 30,000 tonnes had already been gathered.
According to Sergei Ostakh, a professor at the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, the oil may soon make its way to Crimean coastlines.
“No one should have illusions it will stay clean,” he said, calling for quick action.
The oil spills may have killed 21 dolphins, the Delfa dolphin rescue centre said, although additional tests were needed to confirm the cause of death.
