Oil has begun leaking again from the bow of the tanker Volgoneft-239, which sank in the Kerch Strait in December 2024, according to Russia’s OSINT project SkyEye, which studied satellite images from early July 2026.
In Greenpeace for BBC journalists certainOil spills in this area have been occurring regularly since the beginning of July. According to Greenpeace, oil traces ranging in length from 2-3 to 8-10 kilometers are almost constantly recorded on satellite images.
The SkyEye project suggests that the metal coffins were built atop two tankers that sank in the Kerch Strait to isolate them and later pump fuel oil.
The current leak, as Sky Eye points out, may be linked to the rise in water temperature in the Black Sea, the heating of fuel oil and the migration of light parts through leaks in connections, as well as the work of pumping petroleum products from tankers.
The tankers Volgunft-212 and Volgunft-239 sank due to a strong storm in the Kerch Strait in December 2024. According to emergency services, the tankers were transporting a total of about 9.2 thousand tons of fuel oil, which polluted dozens of kilometers of shore in the Krasnodar Territory. Due to a fuel oil leak, all Anapa’s beaches were declared unsuitable for swimming in the summer of 2025. In 2026, Anapa’s beaches were opened to tourists.