The waste itself is believed to have come from a Latvian army base and was dumped from Russian boats in the cover of night. What happened to it is unknown as no attempt was made at the time to track or recover the barrels.

While this is no real surprise, in that the USSR and latterly Russia have been known to have little regard for environmental concerns, it is worrying due to the fact that the Baltic Sea is already in trouble pollution-wise and is mostly enclosed, making it harder for the pollution to dissipate.