Volunteers in Russia rescue oil-soaked birds as new petroleum slick hits Black Sea coast
Volunteers in Anapa are again rescuing birds contaminated by petroleum products, and the worker leading the effort says the pollution comes from a new spill. Goar Avanesova, a volunteer with the bird rescue team, told the Russian news outlet Podyom the substance is not the same as what washed ashore last year.
This isn’t the same oil as last year. This one’s thinner, almost like it’s fresh. And it’s not even certain it’s fuel oil at all — that still needs to be looked into. Yes, it’s black, yes, it’s washing up on shore, yes, they’re disposing of the sand left on the beaches along with it. But it’s not a given that this is fuel oil. Volunteers are noting that it’s less dense than last time and washes off birds more easily.
The Emergency Situations Ministry and Kuban-SPAS are working on the beaches to collect the oil washing ashore in a haphazard pattern, Avanesova said. She added that the authorities have been fully organized, coordinated, and responsive this time.
The contamination is being cleaned up as quickly as possible, she said, but volunteers are still needed. People on the ground who can step in quickly and help with hands-on work at the rehabilitation center are what’s required, she said.
A petroleum slick was spotted 11 kilometers (7 miles) off the Anapa coast in early April. The Krasnodar Krai operational headquarters reported that more than 200 birds were found dead or injured along the shoreline on April 11 and 12 as a result of the spill.
Krasnodar Krai authorities attributed the slick to Ukrainian drone strikes on civilian vessels in the Black and Azov seas. Preliminary estimates suggest 300 to 350 tons of petroleum products may have entered the water, Podyom reported.
In December 2024, two Russian tankers carrying petroleum products sank in the Kerch Strait, spilling more than nine thousand tons of fuel oil into the sea. Authorities and environmental experts estimated that several thousand tons of petroleum products entered the water. The fuel oil contaminated dozens of kilometers of coastline in Krasnodar Krai, and birds living along the Black Sea were among those affected. Volunteers traveled from cities across Russia to help rescue them.
In the summer of 2025, the beaches of Anapa — one of Russia’s most popular summer resort destinations — were closed. In late March 2026, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Savelyev announced that 90 percent of the fuel oil had been removed from Anapa’s beaches and that they were set to reopen on June 1.
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