In framework of permanent cooperation with UN bodies and pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 54/10, our Association sent in March our submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on toxics and human rights, Professor Marcos Orellana, for his thematic report to the Council on access to justice and effective remedies in the context of toxics to be researched in September 2025.
That ARC’s submission, published at UN official web-sources now, stressed that Russian naval aggression created special environmental risks, including potential changes in the Black Sea hydrogen sulfide layer located in its deep-water part. Submission reminded to UN bodies that negative climate changes are not just the side effect of Russian aggression against Ukraine, but it is one of its major goals: as it is known the Kremlin administration uses the narratives that the global warming and ocean level rise are allegedly “useful” for Russia as such situation will allegedly allow to develop actively the natural resources of Russia-controlled northern part of Eurasia, that make multiplication of the relevant ecological risks.
ARC’s submission reminded of the next challenges for Black Sea ecology, caused by Kakhovka HPP destruction on Dnipro River on 6 June, 2023, when the Russian occupation forces had blown up the HPP dam.
ARC’s submission added that next catastrophic situation, connected with Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, started on December 15, 2024 when the Russian tankers “Volgoneft-212” and “Volgoneft-239”, with some thousand tons of fuel oil cargo sunk in the Black Sea near Kerch strait.
ARC’s submission stressed that those two Volgoneft-type ships had classification documents from such an “authoritative” structure as the “Russian Classification Society” (formerly the “Russian River Register”), and were, in principle, not intended for maritime shipping. But Russian owners exploited them in conditions of winter stormy weather in Black Sea, and Russian port authorities first allowed them to exit ports for cargo operations and later they banned captains of tankers returning back to safe harbor, demanding those vessels to stay on anchorage near Kerch Strait.
ARC’s submission added that Russian “authorities” in Crimea disseminated fakes about situation from the very beginning of catastrophe, they did not use the present oil and garbage collectors, located in Sevastopol to collect fuel oil due to their ugly technical conditions, and that the later collected hundreds tons of waste, also as thousands of death birds and mammals from shores, are storing by aggressor without any compliance of minimal ecologic demands.
ARC added to our submission the IMO’s Marine Environment Division letter to our Association on that issue, which acknowledged the gravity of these events and their impact on the environment and expressed IMO’s “sincere sympathies with all those affected, including local communities that are facing significant challenges as a result”.
ARC’s submission stressed that special attention must be paid to illegal activities of Russian classification societies such as “Russian Maritime Register of Shipping” and “Russian Classification Society” that provided illegal “classification supervision” of merchant fleet vessels, port infrastructure, and property of the Ukraine’s “Chornomornaftogaz” state joint-stock company seized in the occupied Crimea.
And, regarding to the remedy issues, ARC’s submission described the Crimean Tatar Mejlis’ petition 0q9h7usy, sent of the catastrophe of “Volgoneft-212” and “Volgoneft-239” to UN Human Rights bodies in Geneva, regarding compensation of relevant damages for collective rights of Indigenous Crimean Tatar People, including right to sustainable development and environmental rights.
Our cooperation with UN bodies on the evaluation of the consequences of the ecological catastrophe of “Volgoneft-212” and “Volgoneft-239” will be continued.
