Ukraine Insinuates Russia About Black Sea Pollution Tanker: Their Fleet Is Underdeveloped

JAKARTA - Ukraine says Russia is to blame for the large oil spill in the Kerch Strait leading to the Black Sea.

Ukraine accuses Moscow of violating navigational safety rules by using old tankers at sea during a storm.

Russian oil tankers were split during a storm on Sunday, while other tankers were caught in difficulties in the strait separating Russia from the Crimean Peninsula which was seized and annexed by Moscow troops from Ukraine in 2014.

Russia did not say how much fuel was leaking, but state news agency TASS reported the two ships carrying 9,200 metric tons of oil products.

"Russia is facing a rather complicated situation in the Azov region and the Black Sea. They are using outdated fleets, these ships are over 50 years old," Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian navy told Reuters on Monday, December 16.

The split ship, Volgoneft 212, dates back to 1969 and Volgoneft 239 was built in 1973, according to a certificate seen by Reuters.

Pletenchuk said the ships that had crashed were designed to transport oil products along the river and load them to other ships at sea and were not meant to be used in hurricane weather.

The two ships had previously shut down the AIS identification system, a global naval navigation system, making it impossible to identify their location using satellites.