White Sea–Baltic Canal had plans to carry 800,000 tonnes of fuel oil over the canal during 2003, and to increase the volume to in 2004. The fuel was transferred from Volgotanker river tankers to Latvian seagoing tankers at a floating transfer station near the Osinki Island in the Onega Bay of the White Sea, north-east of the port of Onega. Transfer operations began on 24 June 2003. But on 1 September 2003 a low-speed collision between Volgotanker's "Nefterudovoz-57M" and the Latvian "Zoja-I" during a transfer caused a crack in the "Nefterudovoz's" hull, with a subsequent oil spillage. Various estimates of the extent of
Battle of Bolshie Ozerki of the intervention to involve American forces, though they successfully defended their camp from a Russian attack at Romanovka composed of forces that greatly outnumbered them two months later and inflicted hundreds of casualties during the Suchan Valley Campaign the following month. Allied forces began to withdraw rapidly from northern Russia shortly thereafter. Bolshie Ozerki was a small village situated between the port city of Onega and an important Allied position at Obozerskaya Station, along the Arkhangelsk-Vologda railroad. Because the port of the main Allied base at Arkhangelsk froze every winter, reinforcements had to be brought overland to the front