Krasnodar Krai is on heightened alert over a “possible spill of petroleum products.” Governor Veniamin Kondratyev signed the order on the evening of October 13. The document says naval drone attacks on vessels in the Black Sea “caused accidents,” creating a risk of an emergency in Gelendzhik and Novorossiysk.
On October 6, the Liberian-flagged oil tanker Aframax Rio caught fire off Sochi’s coast. A column of smoke was visible for kilometers, and the smell of burning reached central Sochi. Russia’s Transport Ministry said uncrewed boats (naval drones) had attacked the tanker. The 23 crew members were evacuated. Preliminary reports indicated that the tanker was carrying crude oil from Novorossiysk to India. According to another account, it was sailing empty from Turkey and was scheduled to load cargo in Novorossiysk on October 22–23.
Authorities said the tanker fire had caused no pollution in the Black Sea. Russia’s consumer protection and public health watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, and Sochi Mayor Andrey Proshunin were among those who said so on October 7. The Kremlin said: “The response to the incident is going well.” Even so, authorities imposed “swimming restrictions” at Sochi’s beaches.
Greenpeace environmental experts said an oil slick covered about 25 square kilometers (10 square miles) of the Black Sea. Satellite images showed that during the day on October 7, the attacked tanker was near the settlement of Lazarevskoye, roughly 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the site of the fire. At that point, the experts spotted a trail of petroleum products on the water, covering about 8 square kilometers (3 square miles). Daytime satellite images from October 8 showed that the vessel had passed Tuapse and that the oil slick had grown to 25 square kilometers (10 square miles).
Pollution off Krasnodar Krai’s coast has spread as far as Anapa, according to the environmental project Prozrachny Mir, citing satellite imagery. Its specialists analyzed images from October 10 and 12 and found that the pollution had broken into patches and spread farther along the coast. Traces are visible around Novorossiysk Bay, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s terminals, and beyond, toward Anapa.
Volunteers began finding birds coated in petroleum products along the coast. Three black-necked grebes with chemical burns caused by petroleum products were brought to the Zhemchuzhnaya wildlife rehabilitation center in Anapa. The birds were found in Arkhipo-Osipovka, a village within Gelendzhik, and in Novorossiysk. Another bird coated in petroleum products was found near Sochi’s Lazarevsky neighborhood. On October 12, the center said 10 birds had been found so far.
Greenpeace believes the fire burned the tanker’s bunker fuel rather than any fuel it was carrying as cargo. Bunker fuel powers a vessel’s engines and generators. The environmental experts do not know whether the tanker was carrying oil when it was attacked. On October 9, they said the pollution was serious and would affect Black Sea ecosystems but “cannot be called catastrophic, as it would have been if the tanker’s entire contents had caught fire and spilled”:
Even if only bunker fuel caught fire, this is a serious incident with a range of environmental effects. The film on the water’s surface kills plankton, which form the base of the marine food chain. It also poisons and kills various marine animals and birds. Heavy petroleum products eventually sink to the seabed, killing organisms there, and will contaminate the water with toxic compounds for a long time. Toxic soot from the fire will settle on the water’s surface and possibly on land as well.
“Small amounts of petroleum products” have washed ashore in Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Krai’s emergency response headquarters said on October 14. Authorities maintain that the material is “not petroleum products carried by the tanker damaged in October.” Specialists are cleaning the shoreline. “As of now, no significant amounts of petroleum products have been found washed ashore, nor have any large oil slicks been detected on the sea’s surface,” the statement said.
In the spring of 2026, Ukraine struck Tuapse in Krasnodar Krai several times, targeting the local oil refinery and marine terminal. The fires caused “oil rain” to fall on the city several times, and spills of petroleum products were found in a local river and the Black Sea. The tankers Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 were also wrecked during a storm in the Kerch Strait in 2024. Together, they were carrying about 9,200 metric tons (10,100 U.S. tons) of heavy fuel oil, which contaminated dozens of kilometers of coastline in Krasnodar Krai. Because of the spill, all of Anapa’s beaches were declared unfit for swimming in the summer of 2025.
Read more
- Oil tanker burns off Russia’s Sochi after naval drone attack, sending smoke billowing over the coast. Photos and videos.
- Oil on the beaches, drone attacks, gasoline shortages: Russia’s Black Sea coast is now a perilous place to vacation. So why do Russians keep coming?
- Oil-soaked sands and rescued animals: One year after the Kerch Strait spill, beaches in southern Russia remain polluted
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