Dead dolphins, naval mines: Russia-Ukraine war destroys the Black Sea

Is the war entering a new phase? They release them by cutting off their fins and dropping them in the sea. Their bodies, with net marks on their skin, are often washed ashore. It failed - but the ongoing hostilities have been killing "hundreds times more" bottlenose and short-beaked dolphins and harbour porpoises, according to Ivan Rusev, head researcher at the Tuzly Lagoons national park in southern Ukraine. In 2022 alone, some 50,000 dolphins died this way, and by 2026, the number exceeded 120,000, or one in four cetaceans in the Black Sea, Rusev told Al Jazeera.