A drone attack sank one vessel and damaged another near Bulgarian waters as regional maritime tensions rise.
A merchant ship sank and a second commercial vessel was damaged after drones struck both targets off Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast early Tuesday, Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev said.
One vessel went down 17 nautical miles east of the Bulgarian coastal village of Krapets, with only one crew member rescued from the water, BBC News reported. The second ship, a Ukrainian-owned vessel named the Chelsea 3, was hit by three drones about 18 nautical miles from the town of Byala at roughly 1:30 a.m. local time on Tuesday. Rescuers brought all 15 members of its crew to safety, including seven Ukrainian citizens and eight Azerbaijani nationals, though five suffered minor injuries, according to Al Jazeera.
Radev described the strikes near Bulgarian waters as intolerable, held an emergency meeting with security chiefs on Tuesday, and summoned Russian Ambassador Eleonora Mitrofanova. Radev acknowledged that authorities lacked direct proof against either side, but he noted that “the logic suggests that the outcome benefits the Russian Federation”.
Diplomatic fallout and NATO contacts
Bulgarian media reported that Mitrofanova told Radev she possessed no details from Russia’s defense ministry regarding the strikes, and she suggested a third party could have staged the incident as a provocation. Russia’s military has not issued any public statement on the matter.
Bulgaria belongs to the NATO military alliance and holds a key strategic position on the Black Sea coast. Following the strikes, Radev said he planned to speak with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Radev took office during the summer and had previously asked NATO and the European Union for technical aid after earlier strikes, while also rejecting suggestions that his administration was pro-Russian.
Western and Ukrainian officials quickly condemned the attacks. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, “The Black Sea has become another front of escalation of the Russian war in Ukraine.” She urged accountability for those responsible and praised Bulgarian rescue teams for their response.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha accused Moscow of deliberately endangering civilian lives and maritime trade routes. Sybiha warned that strikes against Black Sea shipping directly imperil international food security.
What happened before
Tuesday’s strikes followed a similar attack exactly one week earlier inside Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone. In that Oct. 6 incident, aerial and naval drones hit two commercial vessels, sinking a ship called the Alfa Watan. All 10 crew members from the Alfa Watan, including nine Syrian nationals, remain unaccounted for and are presumed dead.
On the same day as that earlier attack off Bulgaria, Ukrainian forces hit an oil tanker docked in the Russian Black Sea port of Sochi. Russia has stepped up strikes on vessels across the western Black Sea, stating that its operations target ships transporting weapons and dual-use cargo into Ukraine. Moscow pointed to strikes it conducted in the Ukrainian ports of Mykolaiv and Chornomorsk as part of that campaign.
Kyiv and European governments counter that Russian forces are targeting commercial grain freighters and other civilian transports rather than military shipments.
Why it matters
The Black Sea serves as an essential shipping corridor for global agricultural markets, as both Ukraine and Russia rank among the world’s largest grain exporters. Growing military activity along commercial routes has raised concerns among neighboring coastal states.
Turkey has repeatedly urged both nations to halt attacks across Black Sea waters. However, the Russian government has repeatedly turned down proposals from the United States and European nations for a naval ceasefire in the region, arguing that Ukraine continues to target Russian commercial shipping.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Russian forces currently occupy roughly 20 percent of Ukrainian territory.
