The Zhemchuzhnaya rehabilitation center in Anapa said it received three grebes covered in oil products the previous day and expected roughly ten more contaminated birds by evening, which volunteers had reported. Staff urged concerned members of the public to come and help, adding: "We hope it will stop at three grebes. We really don't want a repeat of this horror."
Ecologist Georgy Kavanosyan reported individual oil-coated birds along the Black Sea coast. According to him, one such bird was found near Lazarevskoye and another in Gelendzhik.
A week ago, the oil tanker Aframax Rio caught fire off the coast of Sochi. The vessel sailed under the flag of Liberia and likely belonged to Russia's "shadow fleet." The Transport Ministry said the fire was extinguished and no spill occurred. Rosprirodnadzor, the federal environmental watchdog, also officially stated there was no pollution of the Black Sea after the incident.
Specialists from Greenpeace, after analyzing the preliminary consequences of the fire, reported an oil slick covering 25 km². The organization called the Russian authorities' statements about the absence of pollution untrue. According to Greenpeace, the film on the water surface destroys plankton, poisons marine animals and birds, and heavy oil products eventually sink to the bottom and continue to contaminate the water with toxic compounds.
Earlier, in December 2024, the tankers Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 were wrecked in the Kerch Strait. Satellite images in July 2026 recorded new leaks of fuel oil from the sunken tankers — so-called oil slicks. That accident killed thousands of birds, and in the Krasnodar region almost 700 dead dolphins were reported in the year that followed.