The Krasnodar Krai Ministry of Natural Resources has demanded an additional 34 billion rubles from the owners of the tankers that sank in the Kerch Strait. The total amount of claims for environmental damage is approximately 120 billion rubles.
The Arbitration Court of Krasnodar Krai at its hearing on February 24 will consider The Kuban Ministry of Natural Resources filed a lawsuit against the owners of the Volgoneft-239 and Volgoneft-212 tankers for 34,3 billion rubles. This includes 30,7 million rubles in damages to the Krasnodar Krai budget and 34,22 billion rubles in environmental damage.
Thus, the total amount of damages related to the disaster in the Kerch Strait amounts to approximately 120 billion rubles.
Previously, Rosprirodnadzor presented claims from Kama Shipping LLC and Volgatransneft CJSC for almost 85 billion rubles. However, the head of the department, Svetlana Radionova, said, that he “sees no desire” on the part of tanker owners to pay off this debt.
According to Vladimir Chuprov, executive director of the environmental project “The Earth Touches Everyone”, the company may not have sufficient own funds to compensate for environmental damage, since the loss of the Kama Shipping company in 2023 amounted to 15 million rubles, and the loss of Volgatransneft was 61 million rubles (data from the SPARK system).
To date, companies have still not begun to pay for the damages.
On December 15, 2024, the most serious environmental disaster in Russia since the beginning of the 21st century occurred—the oil spill in the Kerch Strait. Read about how it happened in our cards.