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Dirtbag of the Year: Russia plunges ahead with war on environment

Dirtbag of the Year: Russia plunges ahead with war on environment
An upclose view of a Ukraine Antarctic expedition, caught behind shards of glass. (Photo: Aleksandr Zakletsky, Yulia Kryvytska)
Tiara Walters
By Tiara Walters
25 Dec 2024
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South Africa and the UK’s Foreign Office also earned dishonourable mentions.

Can anything be fouler than a ship covered in the poo of 19,000 abused cows, filling Cape Town’s central parts with an unbearable stench? 

This year, you decided that the Russian government trounced the Al Cowait… we mean Al Kuwait cattle carrier’s foul-smelling sojourn in port. For, among others, using Cape Town as a staging ground for its Antarctic fossil fuel ambitions, it was the Kremlin that scooped “Dirtbag of the Year”. 

At the heart of a melting wilderness that’s steadily more eish than ice, there’s the Akademik Alexander Karpinsky, a vessel owned by — uh-huh — Kremlin mineral explorer Rosgeo. 

Mineral resources activities “other than scientific research” are banned under the Madrid Protocol, the Antarctic Treaty’s environmental laws. So you also found it pretty rich to learn that Rosgeo claims to have found 15 years of global oil consumption (500 billion barrels) in none other than the Southern Ocean. Its Antarctic studies, Rosgeo concedes, “ensure guarantees of Russia’s full participation in any form of possible future development of the Antarctic mineral resources”.

Skop, skiet en donner


Just science, yes? 

If it can’t get weirder than looking for hydrocarbons in “ground zero for runaway climate change”, it’s surely ecocidal for its seismic airguns to map its ocean floor using sound explosions that can hurt and kill marine life. 

You’ve also read cracking good research reviewed by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, explaining what this sonic assault does to sensitive species.

’Tis the season, so we’ll spare you. But trust us. It’s horrible — especially in a reserve devoted to “peaceful” things.

Seismic porky pies


When quizzed at Westminster’s Antarctic inquiry on December 11, the UK’s Foreign Office responded with Olympic-level irrelevance. 

There is not “any evidence” that Russian “seismic surveys” are taking place in Antarctica, it said at 4.16pm, to the susurrations of James Gray, the obscure former candidate for South Cotswolds, dozing off in the background. But Rosgeo wrote in its own statement in 2020: “The overall length of the comprehensive seismic and gravimagnetic explorations within the Antarctic Shelf seas for all time of explorations is more than 140,000 line km.”

Foreign Office officials told the inquiry that the UK, together with Russia, reaffirmed the mining ban at the 2023 annual talks. 

Is reaffirming the ban a get-out-of-jail-free card? Or an invocation to enforce the laws you have sworn to uphold? Answers to our questions were not received.

Anyhoo, the picaresque Karpinsky — under US energy sanctions since February — is scheduled to pitch and roll back to Antarctica this season. 

South Africa and the convenience of complicity


This year, you also learnt Russia’s ships have used Cape Town as a cargo node to build its new $108-million Vostok research station in East Antarctica — part-bankrolled by the personal fortune of the gas oligarch Leonid Mikhelson. 

Let’s spare a thought for Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis. Aghast at being turned into Moscow’s logistical support hub, he has called Russian state vessels, including the Karpinsky, a “shameful, moral disgrace”. 

In his defence, port access is the national government’s jol, which is backing the Kremlin by agreeing with its definition of “scientific research” … whatever that is. 

Democratic Alliance spokesperson Andrew de Blocq says the party thinks the Karpinsky’s activities “are in contravention of the Madrid Protocol and constitute exploration with a future intention of exploitation”. 

A rogues’ gallery of obstruction


In 2024, you were saddened to hear that Russia blocked “specially protected species” status for emperor penguins — whose millennia-year-old march comes to an end within a human lifetime if we carry on like this. 

The Russian delegations also worked with geo padel buddy China to disagree with marine parks (‘Nyet — not enough science!’); krill restrictions to stop ships from competing with natural predators (‘Not enough science!’); and Canada’s bid for decision-making status (‘Not enou…’ … yup). 

This was no amateur dirtbaggery, you felt, but a creeping global tragedy plunging Antarctic governance into historic deadlock. 

An upclose view of a Ukraine Antarctic expedition, caught behind shards of glass. (Photo: Aleksandr Zakletsky, Yulia Kryvytska)


Our shared humanity


In October 2022, the force of Moscow’s missile collapsed the ceiling of Kyiv’s Antarctic headquarters. Shattered team photos of Antarctic scientists — gentle people studying moss and penguins — flew off walls, landing among ripped-off blinds. The strike narrowly missed a historic climate server.

And yet it’s difficult to appreciate what some Russian scientists have sacrificed by speaking out against President Vladimir Putin’s rampaging agenda. 

Yes, Kremlin dirtbaggery has broken hearts on both sides of the ice curtain.

Despite its flaws, the Antarctic Treaty remains a beautiful thing worth defending. 

Putin’s Kremlin may want to destroy what it cannot control, but let’s refuse to give it our shared humanity. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.


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