Rosneft and its associated charterer Rosnefteflot were not named as defendants in the principal compensation lawsuits arising from the wreck of Volgoneft tankers in the Kerch Strait, although the journalists report that the fuel oil they carried belonged to the oil company. The findings appeared in a joint investigation by The Insider and the Center for Investigative Journalism published on October 23.
The Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 tankers were wrecked during a storm in December 2024. The spill contaminated the coastline of Russia's Krasnodar region and occupied Crimea. Cleanup operations are continuing, and some observations indicate that pollution persists.
Journalists examined corporate and court records, shipping arrangements, cleanup information and satellite monitoring data. They report that Rosnefteflot, a company associated with Rosneft, chartered both vessels. The principal claims, however, targeted the tankers' owners and operators, whose financial position raises doubts about their ability to pay the awarded sums.
Russia's environmental regulator Rosprirodnadzor estimated the spill's ecological damage at approximately 84.94 billion rubles. The investigators say that figure does not cover potential damage outside territory under Russian control. Cleanup expenditures calculated by the journalists from published rulings were substantially lower than the estimated damage.
The researchers also cite satellite observations of oil slicks and models of how they could spread across the Black Sea. Without chemical analysis, however, the observations do not prove that every instance of pollution found off Romania or Bulgaria resulted from the tanker wrecks. Similarly, estimates of losses among marine animals must not be presented as a verified count of animals killed directly by the fuel oil.
The conclusions about Rosneft's role in the transport arrangements and the benefits it derived belong to the investigators. A commercial relationship does not amount to a court finding of legal liability against the company.