More than a month has passed since the fuel oil disaster of the tankers Volgoneft 212 and Volgoneft -239. The heroic elimination of the consequences continues. 265 km of the coast are being surveyed. The collected fuel oil is being taken to landfills. Any, even the most insignificant results, are presented by regional bureaucratic PR people in regional media and on federal TV channels as grand victories over the fuel oil evil.
As the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel notes, two questions are coming to the fore today. First: who, as a result of this forced fuel oil heroism, will compensate for the multi-billion dollar costs of the work being carried out and pay for the monstrous environmental damage? And second: what conclusions will Putin draw about the role of a number of regional and federal officials in this disaster. And here, first of all, it is interesting, how will the epic deception of the president by the Kuban leader - Veniamin Kondratyev - end? After all, precisely because in Krasnodar, in the building on Krasnaya Street, 35, panic and horror to the point of trembling reign, in anticipation of the presidential conclusions on the obvious lie of Kondratyev Putin right during the live December presidential broadcast, the Kuban propaganda machine is working at maximum speed, releasing steam about the heroism and merits of the regional leadership into the Russian media broadcast.
Literally a few hours after the disaster, the regional governor swore to the president that he would personally cope with the "problem", and that the region does not need any federal assistance. Putin will voice these assurances during his live broadcast... And now, it turns out that the president has begun to look somehow very romantically trusting, thanks to Kondratyev. Especially considering the revealed scale of the fuel oil spill. The leader of any state, of course, must trust his associates. But it is no coincidence that the American President Reagan liked the Russian proverb: "Trust, but verify" so much that he even said it to our Gorbachev during a joint promenade on Red Square. Incidentally, the saying became a favorite of all subsequent American presidents. Putin checked Kondratieva without checking. As a result, it turned out somehow very awkward.
The federal emergency regime, which volunteers begged Kondratieva about from the very first minutes after the disaster, was declared in the disaster area only a couple of weeks later. It is clear that it is not the governor's authority to raise the disaster to the federal level. However, the governor was simply obliged to report to the feds about the real scale of the disaster. Kondratieva even made the declaration of the regional emergency only a day before the federal one.
Kondratieva's own lies, in general, are very typical of him. He lied to Putin more than once or twice. Let's recall at least his assurances about the excellent state of primary health care in the region. About the speed of implementation of national projects, many of which have been openly failed in the region. Well, you can't consider a school with the first "I" classes and a real teacher's salary of 20 thousand rubles a success of the national project "Education"! Kondartyev also lied to the Krayemlevsky about the success of the garbage reform, even after he managed to agree with Moscow on a one-year delay in the start, the Kuban garbage dumps - have become a stable reason for dozens of protest rallies of people speaking out against the garbage poisoning organized under the supervision of the regional authorities. And taking into account the corrupt interest that some regional operators provided to vice-governors, heads of cities and districts, the prospects for implementing the goals of the reform in the region are in a very bright and very distant future.
The reason for the governor's lies is simple and obvious: servility and a desire to please. And when the fuel oil disaster happened, Kondratyev simply could not say anything other than “I can handle it myself… no help needed.” For so long he had been molding himself into the image of a “seasoned fighter” who could solve “any issues” in the region. Who would have told him that the ability to solve business issues, or land issues, or the development of federal program budgets with considerable benefit for those same Moscow friends, or to engage in million-dollar ballot stuffing during elections, to the delight of Kremlin curators, does not at all mean the ability to work effectively in extreme emergency conditions.
In a recent interview, the scientific director of the Institute of Water Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Viktor Danilov-Danilyan, when asked how late the authorities’ reaction was, said:
“Very late. For a week, there was no one there except volunteers. For a week, no one woke up there at all, neither in the administration of the Krasnodar Territory, nor in the Ministry of Emergency Situations. It’s amazing. And as for the people who began to work there systematically out of duty, and not at the call of their hearts, this was at best very sluggish, with completely insufficient forces, and only happened somewhere on the ninth or tenth day.” It was then that Kondratyev assured the president that he could handle it himself, that he had “created a group of four thousand people.” In the same interview, the authoritative scientist mentioned examples of a different approach to similar maritime emergencies. When and the authorities in other countries began to act 15!!! minutes after the tanker disaster. But such obvious efficiency is not about Kuban. Well, yes, now the VN-239, thrown by a storm onto the coastal shoal near Cape Panagia, is surrounded by a dam. But this work was carried out long after the broken steamer began to leak fuel oil. If any of the regional leaders had a brain, it would be obvious: such work had to be done in the first day after the disaster. Because, lying on the sand, the steamer, with tanks full of fuel oil, under the blows of the waves, would inevitably leak. Moreover, in this case, the work would not be very expensive.
Not far away - in Yurovka, there is a quarry, stones and crushed stone, from which, for example, were used to restore the Tuzla Spit at the beginning of the century. And nothing, the restored spit stood. And was later used in the construction of the Crimean Bridge... But this would have been possible if the Kuban governor's thought processes were directed not at how to compose brave words that would please Putin, but at realizing the real scale of the disaster, and thinking through urgent measures to minimize the consequences. It is clear that it was impossible to completely avoid the consequences of the VN-212 and VN-239 accidents. But it was the absolute unprofessionalism of Kondratyev and his "effective team" that made these consequences as sad as possible. A federal emergency regime was declared very late. It was very late that the feds realized that Kondratyev and his "effective team" were nothing more than a bunch of windbags who were only promoting themselves on TV cameras, dirtying their hands and boots with fuel oil. With the obligatory presence of attached TV cameras, designed to capture for posterity the concerns of regional leaders in January 2025. Currently, there is an emergency response team, which includes half a dozen federal ministers. Although, as Danilov-Danilyan noted, it may take more than a decade to talk about the complete elimination of the consequences.
The only thing the Kuban governor was doing well these days was organizing measures to... not air dirty laundry in public. Kondratyev had become adept at this procedure over the years of his leadership. Volunteers were cut off from participating in meetings with federal ministers and the governor - they were told that the cultural center hall where the meeting was taking place was full, although it was not even a fifth full. Those who managed to get through were ordered not to ask the governor any questions at all.
Other volunteers, washing birds from fuel oil, were interrogated for four hours by brave Kuban law enforcement officers. The reason? The regional administrative PR people decided that it would be cool to release the washed birds in front of the cameras. The volunteers, having learned about this, tried to reason with the madmen, telling them new information that not only the fuel oil was washed off the birds, but also the fat layer. If they were released now, they would die from hypothermia, drown, or be poisoned by the fuel oil fish… The volunteers began chasing the administrative idiots who had loaded the boxes with the birds onto a truck. But the official car on duty cut off the pursuers. Well, and then followed a multi-hour interrogation on the topic of what the cormorant launderers were planning that was so hostile to the wise government?
And how will this sabotage and cowardice of Kondratyev be assessed now? The answer will become clear very soon. This year, there will be another gubernatorial election in Krasnodar Krai. If Putin assesses Kondratyev objectively, then the Kuban leader will go somewhere, as they said in one famous film, "as an ambassador to Tunisia" ("and where else?"). But if he walks the red carpet, sprayed with Kremlin perfume, showered with boutonnieres from federal fans of some of his talents and awarded a medal as the best Russian fuel oil worker for heroism and timeliness, then the region will have to watch the eccentricities of the chosen one for another five years. And the region will have another five years of failures, accompanied by the sparkling verbal stupidity of the "winner of fuel oil and sensei of washed-up cormorants."
No less interesting is the question: who will be held accountable as a result of the investigation? More specifically, who will go to jail? And how much will the guilty parties' wallets become thinner due to compensation payments and fines?
Well, at first, it seemed that the Russian law enforcement system decided to take a well-known path: to present the President and the people with a "scapegoat." Captain Leonid Volegov of "VN-212" was thrown into a dungeon for a couple of months, and captain VN-239 was sent under house arrest. The investigation even picked a suitable article right away. Something about violating shipping regulations. But how can our authorities understand their delusions? Everyone remembers the Challenger disaster, right? So, based on our Russian law enforcement logic, a criminal case should have been opened posthumously against the ship's commander. He was at the wheel, the helm, the control panel, or whatever the cosmonauts have? The same is true for the VN-212. The captain of any ship is simply a mercenary, a sea farmhand, to put it simply. Even if he is well paid. Even if the captain somehow found out about the pre-emergency condition of the vessel and refused to go to sea, they would simply throw him out and hire another one. Sending the dismissed one to the "black list". In addition, the captain did not have the slightest idea about the problematic nature of his tanker. After all, the BN-212 was very officially recorded in the Russian river register. Which meant: everything was fine with the vessel. Such vessels of the "river-sea" class are mainly used on rivers, but can also go to sea. With some restrictions. Among which are waves up to 4 points and a ban on going far from the ports of refuge. The fact that now, for some reason, information is being thrown into the Russian information space that the vessels did not have the necessary documents at all, evokes a sad, understanding smile, even among those who are not at all familiar with the rules of navigation. Well, can you really imagine some desperate car enthusiast prancing around on his jalopy, without a vehicle title, without registering the car with the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate, without a technical inspection? His trip would have ended at the nearest traffic police post. There are far fewer steamships than cars. And without all the necessary documents, they would not have traveled a meter on the sea. And these rusty Volgonefts have been wandering the seas since 2014, having moved there from the rivers along which they had been sailing since the day they were built in 1969.
So, the investigation should first figure out who entered these barges into the register? Which of the officials of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation "supervised" this issue? After all, if this entire chain of officials followed the letter of Russian laws, there would be no chance of sailing the seas of a sawn-and-welded steamship. On the contrary, all of Volegov's actions after receiving the storm warning indicate that he was more than professional. He tried to bring the tanker to the port of refuge, Kerch. And he contacted the captain of the port, Sergei Seleznev. But, as it turned out, to enter the Kerch-Yenikalsky Canal, it was necessary to obtain permission from the border guards. After all, in connection with the attacks on the Crimean Bridge, it is simply impossible for any vessel to enter the strait without permission. Due to the strict anti-terrorist regime, even Temryuk fishing companies, which made their budget in the fall and winter by catching anchovy in the strait, were deprived of such an opportunity this year. The tankers were denied entry on this basis. So they were simply forced to storm at sea. Which, given the dying age of the steamships (55 years) and the limited conditions of their operation (well, the design did not initially provide for withstanding waves higher than 2 meters), made the catastrophe almost inevitable. More than a month has passed since the 212th broke up and the 239th was thrown onto the coastal shoal. In mid-January, the Novorossiysk transport prosecutor's office deigned to outline its position. Having looked not only at the attractive future of the crucifixion of captains in court, but also having made a statement that "the owners of the tankers Volgoneft-212 and Volneft-239 - the companies Kama Shipping (Perm) and Volgatransneft (Moscow) should be brought to administrative responsibility for violating the requirements of technical regulations." I wonder what kind of, if all the documents for the ships were there? The Arbitration Court of Krasnodar Krai accepted as many as five claims for bringing to administrative responsibility under Part 2 of Article 14.43 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (violation of the requirements of technical regulations) against the owners of the sunken ships. It can be predicted that the same defendants will also be named in lawsuits for tens, and most likely hundreds, of billions of rubles for damages.
And now the dancing with a tambourine has begun. Literally a few hours before the prosecutor's lawsuit, information about the difficult financial situation of Kama Shipping appeared. It also turned out that the Volga-Bunker company, a bankruptcy creditor of Volgatransneft (which is the shipowner of Volgoneft-239), intends to apply to the arbitration court with a statement on recognizing the debtor as bankrupt. This information was promptly published in the Unified Federal Register of Information on the Facts of Activities of Legal Entities. From the point of view of crooked Russian business logic, everything is logical here: we declare the companies bankrupt, and the bankrupts are off the hook.
The investigation should rummage through the documents of all the named companies. A lot of interesting things could be found. For example, the numbers in the card index of arbitration cases are curious. Back in February 2024, the Moscow Arbitration Court satisfied the claim of Volga-Bunker to recover 6.5 million rubles from Volgatransneft under the sale and purchase agreements concluded in 2022 for six Volgoneft vessels - VN-164, worth 1.16 million rubles, VN-206 (1 million rubles), VN-208 (1.026 million rubles), VN-219 (1.084 million rubles), VN-246 (1.085 million), VN-264 (1.14 million rubles). Even at the prices given, it is obvious what kind of junk was being purchased. Any of these tankers could easily be purchased by some thrifty Russian pensioner grandmother. She would have a choice: either buy a used Lada Kalina or a tanker. Modern tankers, even with a deadweight of up to 5 thousand tons, cost more than 1 million rubles. Even tens of times more expensive than the same amount, but in dollars. And here, I would like to give courage to the investigation and in terms of the role of the Russian Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Industry and Trade in the fuel oil disasters. The fact that Russia needs small tankers is obvious. They are needed, first of all, for the delivery of goods between Russian ports. But somehow this sector of the fleet fell out of the attention of federal ministers. If you look at the enormity of the Russian government's plans for the development of the civilian fleet, then in the "tankers" section you will find only a portfolio of orders for supertankers with a deadweight of 150 thousand tons. Which are supposed to be built mainly in China. The niche, so to speak, of small oil transportation, turned out to be outside the federal attention. And today it has been filled, as is now being discovered, by pre-bankruptcy firms buying up barely breathing oil barges literally for a hat of crackers, and God knows how they receive all the necessary documents for their work. Of course, we can hope and believe that the December fuel oil disaster will serve as a reason for serious work on a complete revision of the entire Russian shipping industry, on defining new principles of state maritime policy, on organizational conclusions on the work of the central management, and, we hope, the management of a number of federal structures. But there are big doubts: will it not be limited to the arrest of the captains of the 212th and 239th Volgonefts, and the issuance of fines to ship owners, which they do not intend to pay, due to very timely bankruptcies.
In the meantime, the Russian consumer with high propaganda tolerance is offered a glorious report about how brave divers, dressed in white protective suits, collect fuel oil from the sandy bottom of the sea with a shovel in the Vityazevo area, putting the extracted stuff in the same bags.
A diver waving a shovel underwater should be recognized as a symbol of the first quarter of the 21st century in Kuban. Timofey Grishin
