Ukraine blames Russia for Black Sea oil spill

Ukraine said on Monday Russia was to blame for a major oil spill in the Kerch Strait that leads into the Black Sea, accusing Moscow of breaking navigation safety rules by using old tankers and keeping two vessels at sea during a storm.

A Russian oil tanker split apart during a storm on Sunday, while another one ended up in distress in the strait that separates Russia from the Crimean Peninsula that Moscow's troops seized and annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Russia did not say how much fuel was leaked but its state news agency TASS reported the two vessels had been carrying 9,200 metric tons of oil products.

"The Russians have a rather complicated situation... in the Azov and the Black Sea region. They use an outdated fleet: these ships were more than 50 years old," Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine's navy, told Reuters by phone. The vessel that was torn apart, the Volgoneft 212, dates back to 1969 and the Volgoneft 239 was built in 1973, according to certificates seen by Reuters.

Pletenchuk said the vessels in the accident were designed to transfer oil products along rivers and load them onto other vessels at sea and were not meant to be used in stormy weather. The two vessels had earlier turned off their AIS identification system, a global naval navigation system, making it impossible to identify their locations using satellites, he added.