Prosecutor's Office of the Crimea estimates an $898-million worth damage from spilled mazut in the Kerch Strait

According to preliminary data, the damage from the spillage of mazut (black oil) as a result of the shipwreck of Russian tanker "Volganeft-139" in the Kerch Strait can reach $898 million, Alexei Ugryumov, Acting Public Prosecutor of the Crimea, has informed.

"The figure has been calculated arithmetically on the basis of the data provided to the Crimean Prosecutor's Office by the Transport Novorossisk Prosecutor's Office of Russia on the amount of the black oil spilled out of the two tanks of the "Volganeft-139" as a result of its shipwreck, plus the amount of diesel fuel and lubricants contained on the ship," Mr Ugryumov told to the press conference in Simferopol on November 30, as the Interfax reports.

The "Caucasian Knot" reported earlier that the Ukrainian Ministry for Protection of the Environment is waiting for detailed documented information from Russia about the vessels that sank in the Kerch Strait on November 11.

"Despite multiple warnings made by the State Azov-Black Sea Ecological Inspection on the need for representatives of the Ministry for Protection of the Environment and Natural Resources to be present in the course of the accident elimination works, they are performed by the forces and means of the Russian Federation without the presence of ecological inspectors from Ukraine," runs the message of the Ministry for Protection of the Environment and Natural Resources of Ukraine.

We remind you that a huge storm in the Kerch Strait on November 11 caused several shipwrecks in the waters of the Azov and Black Seas near the coast of the Krasnodar Territory.

According to the State Frontier Service of Ukraine, a total of 15 vessels got damaged in the Kerch Strait and Black Sea near the Crimean coastal line because of bad weather, 85 persons were in danger, of them 65 persons were rescued.

Ecologists assert that the storm had caused one of the hugest ecological catastrophes recently in Russia. The oil spilled by the tankers has formed two strips 200 meters wide and about 2 kilometres long. "We can state already now that the environment has been heavily damaged, since petroleum products have also toxic properties," said Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman of the public group "ECO-Protection".

Currently, the content of petroleum products in the Kerch Strait is extremely high - the exposure limit has been exceeded by 50 times.

Russian ecologists are already concerned with the fate of the dolphins, which come close to the coast at this time of the year, mass fish kill; they state that the spillage of petroleum products is also a threat for birds.

Direct losses from the accident in the Kerch Strait for the fishery sector of Russia will make over 300 billion roubles. Fishing enterprises of the Rostov Region will lose 15 million roubles.