A new lawsuit against the charterer of "Volgoneft-212" has been filed in Kuban.

The Maritime Rescue Service demands another 81.2 million rubles from the chartering company of the tanker "Volgoneft-212", which crashed near the Kerch Strait in December 2024.

As reported by "Caucasian Knot", the Fifteenth Arbitration Appeal Court on September 28 upheld the decision to recover 49.46 billion rubles from "Kama Shipping" and "Kamatransoil" based on a lawsuit from Rosprirodnadzor for damage caused to the Black Sea.

The Maritime Rescue Service demands to recover from the commercial charterer of the tanker "Volgoneft-212", the company "Kama Shipping", the debt under the contract. The Arbitration Court of the Krasnodar Territory has accepted the lawsuit for consideration, with a preliminary hearing scheduled for November 10, RBC-Kuban reports, citing the court registry.

Since spring 2025, the Maritime Rescue Service has been engaged in another lawsuit against the same defendants: "Kama Shipping", "Kamatransoil", and "Volgotransneft". The defendants in the lawsuit also include the insurance companies VSK and "Absolut Insurance", and the amount of claims has been repeatedly increased – the service is seeking compensation for the work done to eliminate the consequences of the tanker crashes.

In August 2026, the judicial panel on administrative cases of the Krasnodar Regional Court agreed with the conclusions of Rostransnadzor regarding the causes of the crash of the tanker "Volgoneft-239". Among the main reasons were violations by the captains of the vessels and shipowners of seasonal navigation restrictions in the waters of the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait, as well as the lack of qualified personnel in the crews.

In February, the Ministry of Natural Resources of Kuban demanded to recover from the owners and charterer of the tankers more than 34 billion rubles for damage to nature and losses to the regional budget.

In 2025, the administration of Anapa also demanded in court from the owners and charterer of the tankers 211 million rubles, which were spent on eliminating the consequences of the ecological disaster. In August of the same year, the amount of claims increased to 647.4 million rubles.

The lawsuits were filed by officials against the backdrop of dissatisfaction from volunteers regarding the role of the authorities in cleaning up the oil. Thus, in October 2025, the volunteer headquarters "Dolphins" pointed out that volunteers had collected about half of the contaminated sand, the removal of which was reported by the authorities, however, in official reports the work of volunteers is not even mentioned.

The tankers "Volgoneft-212" and "Volgoneft-239" crashed in the Kerch Strait on December 15, 2024. The destruction of their hulls led to a massive spill of oil products, as a result of which a federal state of emergency was declared in the Krasnodar Territory on December 26 of the same year.

Materials on the consequences of the oil spill have been collected by "Caucasian Knot" on the page "Ecological Disaster in Kuban". Also, on "Caucasian Knot", a reference has been published "The Scale of Pollution in Southern Russia with Oil".