Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria have agreed at the ministerial level on joint steps for international institutions to cooperate on the large-scale environmental disaster in the Black Sea caused by fuel oil pollution after the accident of two Russian tankers in the Kerch Strait, Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Minister of Ukraine Svitlana Hrynchuk said on Facebook Monday.

The minister said she held another online meeting with Romanian Minister for Environment, Waters and Forests Mircea Fechet and Acting Minister of Environment and Water of Bulgaria Petar Dimitrov to discuss the lack of realistic information on the scale of the disaster.

"We have access to information about this situation only through Crimean local media and a limited number of satellite images. As of today, the images demonstrate that the contamination with Russian fuel oil has reached the city of Yevpatoria. UkrSCES [Ukrainian Scientific Center of Ecology of the Sea] continues to monitor the emergency incident with the help of available means," she said.

Hrynchuk also discussed the resulting risks to the Black Sea basin ecosystem.

"Despite the fact that mathematical models do not demonstrate the movement of the slick to the west, the consequences of the Russian tankers crash carry risks for the entire Black Sea. We are talking about tens of kilometers of fuel oil film on the water surface deep into the Black Sea, thousands of kilometers of polluted coastline, thousands of dead birds and dozens of dolphins, food chains in ecosystems are broken," she said.

The minister also noted that according to preliminary calculations of environmental inspectors, the fuel oil leak caused material damage to the Black Sea ecosystem of more than $14 billion.

"Separately, we agreed to coordinate joint efforts to limit the withdrawal to the Black Sea of the obsolete fleet of the Russian Federation, which poses potential threats to the marine ecosystem," she said.

According to Hrynchuk, Ukraine has already appealed to the relevant secretariats of the UN conventions, UNEP, UNESCO, the European Union, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), on January 27 this year the case will be considered at a meeting of the IMO subcommittee on pollution prevention.

"We are preparing an appeal to the European Commission and waiting for a tough reaction of the global community. This is not the first such situation with Russian tankers. The Russian Federation ignores the international maritime law. Therefore, ignoring this accident now means allowing its repetition in the future," she said.

As reported, oil products, which entered the Black Sea after the accident of two Russian tankers in the Kerch Strait, reached the shores of Yevpatoria and Bilyaus Spit.