The tragedy that is happening on the shores of the Black Sea in Russia is of its own making | Nature

Southern Russia is experiencing the worst natural disaster in its modern history. In April, repeated Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil facilities in Tuapse led to refinery fires and oil spills along the Black Sea coast, including near Sochi. Residents described “black rain” falling from the sky as smoke and petroleum residue spread across the area. Weeks later, wildlife is still dying, beaches remain polluted and volunteers trying to respond say their efforts have failed. So far, the authorities have not focused on dealing with the problem of the accident, instead of stopping those who are talking about the accident. Despite the ongoing environmental damage, officials are already discussing reopening the beaches and starting the tourist season.

The tragedy raises serious questions about the destruction of the environment during wartime. Ukraine, which has experienced countless natural disasters related to the war in Russia, has been among the leading people who promote the recognition of ecocide as an international crime, although this idea has not yet been established in international law. Following the April strike, however, some environmental activists in Russia and beyond are now also accusing Ukraine of fraud and long-term environmental damage over the oil strike. There is a real debate if such actions can be justified, even when targeting the attacker, if the environmental consequences can last for many years.

But focusing on the attack on Ukraine risks obscuring the root causes of the crisis. Russia’s oil infrastructure is heavily dependent on its military economy, and environmental damage of this magnitude does not happen in vain. It is made up of years of deregulation, lack of supervision and systematic elimination of environmental protection. This has only been exacerbated during mass attacks, as environmental protections have been largely eliminated in favor of the military economy. This includes recent changes in the laws regarding the protection of Lake Baikal – a unique area that contains about 23 percent of the world’s ice-free water – raising concerns among experts about the long-term environmental risks.

Over the years, environmental organizations in Russia have been called “foreign agents” or called “unfit”, independent environmental movements have been suppressed and their activists forced into exile. The tragedy that is happening today is happening in a country where natural disasters are often managed rather than resolved.

The focus of the current situation is not the amount of damage but the response of the authorities. Instead of responding clearly and responsibly, the Russian authorities have tried to suppress the discussion of the danger. This is reminiscent of past practices, including the response to the Chornobyl disaster, where secrecy and delays in disclosure significantly worsened the human and environmental consequences.

In this sense, responsibility is not only due to disaster, but also without planning, control and accountability.

The tragedy has also sparked a strange conversation in Russia itself, much of it happening online, even more so. Volunteers on the ground reported being trapped and, in some cases, tortured while trying to save wild animals. Journalists who tried to cover what was happening were imprisoned. Even as the tragedy unfolds, the space to talk about it remains tightly controlled.

However, what people do is telling. A lot is happening on Instagram, which is banned in Russia, and on other social media sites, where people are still using VPNs to communicate and read real news. Instead of being charges against Ukraine, most of these discussions have gone to the Russian authorities. Tragedy is used, clearly and sometimes clearly, to question the lack of cooperation, the lack of transparency and the political process that allows such problems to happen.

This is important. In a country where even calling the war a war is completely forbidden, the natural disaster has become one of the few ways in which opposition can still arise.

The situation also reflects a deeper problem that extends beyond Russia. It shows a major gap in international law: the lack of measures to deal with serious environmental damage during wartime.

Recent events show the consequences of this difference. The destruction of the Kakhovka Dam caused significant environmental damage, but it was not able to create a lasting international legal or political case. Since then, environmental damage has continued to accompany the war, with no clear solutions to the problem.

In general, the matter is suspended. The war in Ukraine has become so politicized around the world that discussions of its environmental consequences are often minimized, avoided or subsumed into mainstream political discourse. From the point of view of an environmental activist from Russia, this makes people feel helpless. These issues are increasing, not because they are unimportant, but because they are competing with a large number of global problems.

This frustration is also reflected within parts of the Russian military, where there is a growing sense that international partners are more focused on the economic consequences of the conflict than on addressing its deeper and more dangerous causes that go beyond military threats.

Meanwhile, environmental degradation in Russia, a country that covers one-tenth of the world’s land, continues with little international attention. This includes not only war-time damage, but also long-standing practices related to extractivism, colonial rule in ethnic communities, and the systematic reduction of ethnic communities. These are not separate issues. They are part of the same problem, which has not been solved.

The exploitation of nature in Russian regions has been linked to ancient systems of control and expropriation. The same areas in the south are the areas where the Russian Empire massacred the Circassian people, killing and expelling more than 95 percent of the local population at the end of the 19th century. And now, what the Russian authorities seem to care about is not only destroying the environment, but also opening up the beaches so that the area can continue to make money.

As Europe prepares to spend billions of euros in response to what it sees as Russia’s growing military threat, less attention is being paid to the political and economic damage to the environment within Russia itself. From the perspective of an environmentalist and someone completing a master’s degree in international affairs, there is a big difference in how the source of the problem is addressed.

Little attention is paid to the deeper factors that underpin it: Russian colonialism is an extractivist economic model in Russian regions. These issues are still not discussed in political decision making and in schools and media. This difference is particularly evident in the limited opportunities to engage with Russia’s emerging military forces and international activists, who have long raised these concerns. Their views remain limited, although they are important for understanding environmental degradation and political instability in the region.

Many international organizations and NGOs have also reduced or stopped working on environmental and human rights issues in Russia, as well as in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. As a result, all areas of technology are disappearing at a time when they are most needed. Words that may facilitate deeper understanding, and the potential for longer-term solutions, are followed or ignored.

And when disaster strikes, people almost ask how the oil fell from the sky.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect Al Jazeera’s influence.