The Black Sea in Peril: The Echoes of War Ripple Beyond Borders

On the night of June 6, 2023, the Russian military blasted Ukraine’s Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant in a grotesque act of military desperation. The act classified as an “ecocide” has pushed the limits of the region’s ecological resilience. The resulting surge of poisoned water unleashed an ecological catastrophe upon the Black Sea, already choking from wartime neglect.

But the consequences of the war on the Black Sea ecosystem, tourism and economy were there since the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. The drifting sea mines from the war zone put fishermen and tourists at risk already in 2022.

In an extraordinary collaboration, investigative journalists from six Black Sea countries – Ukraine, Georgia, Turkey, Romania, Moldova, and Bulgaria – have come together to measure the impact of the war on the already fragile ecosystem of the Black Sea and scrutinize how governments are responding to this new regional challenge.

The Sea Mines Deadly Lottery

The summer of 2022 was marked with the news about floating mines from the military conflict zone. Drifting mines maim vessels and livelihoods, turning fishing grounds into a deadly lottery.

“Everything is mined,” – says Oleksandr Hromovyi, for whom fishing was the only source of income. Since February 24, 2022, Oleksandr’s family, like many others in Black Sea countries, has been left without a single source of income.

In March 2022, just a month after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Turkish authorities issued a ban on all fishery activities in Kirklareli’s coastal town of Igneada, located just five kilometers south of the Mutludere River, which forms Turkey’s border with Bulgaria. That was the highest season for fishermen, and the ban lasted a month and a half.

“The ban has been lifted, but we’re still afraid to seal on the sea in the dark because no way our vessels can survive if hit by a drifting mine,” – Says Ibrahim Metin, the former head of the Igneada fishery cooperative.

That happened two times in Turkey: 1. On November 9, 2022, a fishing vessel hit a mine off the coast of Igneada, near Bulgaria, sustaining minor damage but the crew was safe; 2. On October 5, 2023, a Turkish-flagged general cargo ship hit a mine off the coast of Romania. This one also sustained minor damage with no injuries to the crew.

In Bulgaria the situation looks much better, probably due to the sea currents. No injuries have been reported on fishing vessels so far.

BIRD sent a FOIA request to the Ministry of Defense to obtain the number of mines detected and neutralized since the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. The answer states, that  “the Naval Forces of the Republic of Bulgaria have received 50 (fifty) signals from civilian, national and partner structures and organisations, regarding the observation of drifting mine-like objects in the national maritime spaces of the Republic of Bulgaria.”

However, only 4 sea mines have been discovered, identified and destroyed. The Navy even gave exact dates and locations thus showing that only 1 mine has been found and destroyed during the active tourist season on 30.06.2022 near the beach Pasha Dere. One more was found and destroyed 23th September near the Maslen Nos area, where no beaches and tourists are present and two others in January 2023. The data provided was actual as of 29 September 2023.

At that moment no joint partnership was established to identify and neutralize the sea mines, but a couple of months later, in January 2024, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey signed an agreement to form an anti mining coalition. 

The Kakhovka Dam Ecocide

Soon after the blast of the Kakhovka Dam, Ukraine hosted a conference with the help of local and international scientists to discuss the impact of the eco-terrorist act on the ecology and economy of the Northern Black Sea region. Experts agreed on one thing: the effect was devastating.

“Climate change in the affected area has been provoked due to an increase in open land areas and a decrease in the water surface area,” says Marina Zakharova, an Institute of Soil Science and Agro-chemistry researcher.

Members of the International Working Group on the Environmental Consequences of the War have also visited Ukraine after the blast.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the gravity of crimes against the environment throughout the war,” – said Vice President of the European Parliament, Heidi Gautala.

According to the professor of physical geography and a specialist in coastal research at the University of Bucharest, Alfred Vespremeanu, the destruction of the Ukrainian Nova Kakhovka dam produced an exceptional flood wave “that carried a lot of debris collected on its way to the Black Sea.”

The Bulgarian authorities insisted heavily – there is no pollution coming to Bulgarian Black Sea beaches after the Nova Kahovka dam blast. But the German tourists didn’t come this year. The European response was slow to put in place, but the first international scientific teams are now in the starting blocks to study the Black Sea war pollution caused by armed conflicts with EU money.

The touristic season 2022 in Bulgaria was not seriously affected by the sea mines danger, but the Nova Kahovka dam blast by the Russians and the ecological disaster that followed changed seriously the safety perception of the Bulgarian Black Sea resorts.

“The sea this year is crystal clear. The Kakhovka dam cannot affect the Bulgarian Black Sea.” This was stated by Veselin Nalbantov, Deputy Chairman of the Bulgarian Hotel and Restaurants Association in a TV Show.

While Nalbantov is not representing a competent authority, his statement was confirmed by the Minister of Ecology Julian Popov. The fact that only 50% of the hotel reservations were booked for the summer season 2023 was explained by Mr. Popov with a “targeted campaign against the Bulgarian tourist season” and “propaganda among leading Russian journalists, who discuss how to take advantage of the explosion of the “Nova Kakhovka” dam, in order to ruin the tourist season in Bulgaria and Romania,” The Minister said that “the goal is to provoke dissatisfaction and peace protests”.

At the same time the authorities multiplied the positive messages. The Bulgarian Water Monitoring Agency multiplied the sea water analysis, the Minister of Tourism Zaritza Dinkova took a sea bath in front of the cameras and the Bulgarian Hotel and Restaurants Association launched a campaign on social media to convince potential tourists that the water is clean. 

This helped attract more tourists from Bulgaria and Central Europe, compensating the outflow of Western European tourists. 

“This season, we lost the German market. And there is a proverbial sentence in tourism that if a destination starts to lose the German market, it does not bode well for it and we need to think.” – Prof. Stoyan Marinov from the University of Economics in Varna stated for the Bulgarian public radio.

Slow European Response

The European response was slow to come. It was only by the end of the 2023 that the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency contributed money for two international projects dedicated to study marine pollution in the Black Sea. 

The consortium  Black Sea SIERRA got some EUR 599 999.5  to “identify specific types of marine pollution, quantify added marine pollution from armed conflicts, detect novel hazardous substances and map underwater noise pollution to assess the impact/threats on key marine biodiversity” and the RESPONSE project will “develop and test new training schemes and curricula for the monitoring, reporting, management and mitigation of marine pollution, with particular attention to pollution caused by armed conflicts.” with EUR 479 803.39 from the European taxpayers money. 

The first monitoring stations in Bulgaria are expected to be installed this spring, said Prof. Dimitar Dimitrov from the Institute of Oceanology, the Bulgarian partner in the Black Sea SIERRA project.

Nino Ramishvili (Georgia, Studio Monitor), Atanas Tchobanov (Bulgaria, BIRD), Oleg Oganov (Ukraine, Nikcenter), Olesia Boreiko (Ukraine, Nikcenter), Sukru Oktay Kilic (Turkey, Fayn Studio), Vitalie Calugareanu (Moldova), Catalin Prisacariu (Romania, Defapt.ro) 

This article was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe.

Leading picture: National Nature Park “Tuzlivski limany”, Ukraine. Photo: Yuri Koshkovski, nikcenter.org

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