Oil spill from refinery struck by Ukraine has contaminated 60 kilometers of Russian coastline, ecologist says

Tuapse will be ready for the resort season, the head of the municipal district, Sergei Boyko, said, promising the city beach — contaminated by an oil spill following Ukrainian drone strikes — will be cleaned up by June 1.

“Of course, the season will happen. Our district’s coastline is about 90 kilometers (56 miles) long. What happened on one beach will have no effect on the other beaches. And we will get this beach in order by June 1, and people who come specifically to our city will be able to use it,” Boyko said on the Solovyov Live channel, according to the Russian business daily Kommersant.

Boyko also said authorities had recorded no abnormal surge in hospital visits in the wake of the oil spill. He attributed reports to the contrary to “Western television companies and bloggers” spreading false information about conditions in the city.

Updated. A Russian ecologist told Agentstvo, an independent Russian investigative outlet, that petroleum discharge has contaminated roughly 60 kilometers (37 miles) of coastline near Tuapse. Experts have called the authorities’ promise to clean up the beaches before the resort season unrealistic.

Ukraine has struck Tuapse four times since mid-April, targeting the local oil refinery and a marine terminal that forms a single complex with it. The attacks triggered several episodes of “oil rain” over the city, and petroleum spills were found in the river and the sea.