Anapa townspeople demand to speed up fuel oil pumping out from sunken tanker parts

Authorities are delaying the liquidation of the environmental disaster without addressing the root cause thereof, Anapa residents have stated in their video appeal addressed to federal authorities, demanding to speed up the pumping out of oil products and lifting the sunken parts of the tankers.

The video appeal of Anapa townspeople to federal authorities has been posted today by the Telegram channel "Civic Anapa". "Six months have passed since the accident, but the wreckage of tankers with fuel oil lying on the seabed continues poisoning the ecosystem of the Black Sea and the coast," the appeal states. Its authors have pointed out that the continuation of fuel oil emissions from tankers is confirmed by satellite images; besides, in recent days, city residents have seen fresh oily stains on water surface and new emissions.

They were outraged by authorities' plans to complete the pumping out of fuel oil and the raising of the sunken tankers in February 2026. "We treat these deadlines as extremely unacceptable. Moreover, it seems that the process of utilizing the funds allocated by the state to the authorized structures responsible for the liquidation is more interesting to them than the liquidation itself. We, residents of Anapa, are already tired of the masks of concern on the faces of officials of all stripes, their showy tours in the scenery of imitation of vigorous activity and chattering about problems that require immediate solutions," the townspeople have stated.

"We ask all the concerned people endowed with power, influence and finances to listen to us and start acting," claimed residents, on whose behalf an activist read out the appeal. They suggested that if Russia lacks the technologies that will allow the tankers to be quickly lifted, they should seek help from foreign countries, in particular, naming China and Turkey. It follows from the video that about a hundred people took part in the action.

This was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on June 1, 2025 at 05:35 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.