Russia has formed a new government commission to coordinate clean up of the biggest spill of oil products in the Black Sea in recent history as the Kremlin continues to assess the full scale of the catastrophe.

Emergency workers toiling to clean up an oil spill in the Black Sea have detected seven new slicks, a Russian official told the TASS state news agency on Friday, as authorities struggle to mitigate the effects of the nearly month-old disaster.

Fresh oil started pouring from a stricken Russian tanker in the Black Sea on Friday, said officials in Moscow, as Ukraine warned of "terrible environmental consequences" from the spill.By trying to "conceal the terrible environmental consequences" Moscow had left the entire Black Sea region vulnerable to the fallout,

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that more needed to be done to clean up an oil spill in the Black Sea, saying efforts so far appeared to have been insufficient to deal with the ecological disaster.

More than 10,000 people have been working to shovel up viscous, foul-smelling fuel oil from sandy beaches in and around Anapa, a popular summer resort. Environmental groups have reported deaths of dolphins,

The Black Sea has recently faced a devastating environmental disaster due to an oil spill from Russian tankers. Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the situation and stated that current efforts to address the crisis are insufficient,

Russian investigators have determined that an oil spill from two tankers in the Black Sea last month was smaller than initially thought, the Transport Ministry said on Thursday.