Drones Sink a Cargo Ship Off Bulgaria, a NATO Black Sea All
Two cargo ships were hit by drones in Bulgaria's Black Sea economic zone early Tuesday, and one of them sank with its crew unaccounted for. Shipping sources say it appears to be the first attack of its kind inside Bulgaria's zone, which makes it the clearest sign yet that the shipping war off Ukraine's coast is spilling into waters that belong to NATO members. Who launched the drones is still unconfirmed.
Sea and aerial drones struck the two vessels at about 3 a.m., roughly 70 nautical miles off the Bulgarian coast, according to Prime Minister Rumen Radev. The Togo-flagged Alfa Watan suffered critical structural damage and sank. The Palau-flagged Able, reportedly carrying wheat, caught fire. A Bulgarian ferry and a naval fast boat evacuated all 18 Able crew members, and two seriously injured sailors were flown to a hospital in Varna. Radev described the strike as a violation of international and maritime law.
The vessel names and flags come from British risk group Vanguard, which Reuters cited. By Wednesday, Bulgarian authorities had halted the search for the Alfa Watan's 12 crew members after finding no survivors, SOFX reported. The Russian Embassy in Bulgaria denied involvement, saying the ships were not among the targets hit by Russian armed forces, and urged patience until an investigation determines where the drones came from.
Attribution is the contested part. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed Russia and said Ukrainian forces conducted no operations in that part of the sea, citing contacts in the Bulgarian navy who pointed to a combined Russian strike with maritime and aerial drones. Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, also blamed Moscow. A maritime security source told Reuters that initial assessments suggested a probable Russian attack.
Radev, by contrast, said the attackers were either Russian or Ukrainian and did not name a culprit. He also ruled out invoking NATO's Article 4 or Article 5, describing the area as neutral waters within Bulgaria's exclusive economic zone. Bulgarian President Iliana Yotova said the war had worsened Black Sea security but stopped short of blaming Moscow while the investigation continues.
The Bulgarian incident followed another one by a day. On Monday, the Turkish-owned grain carrier Royad Mammadov caught fire and sank about 20 miles off Romania's coast after leaving the Ukrainian port of Ismail bound for Ravenna, Italy. The ship was inside Romania's exclusive economic zone, not its territorial waters.
Casualty figures differ by source. Euronews and SOFX report two crew members killed, 11 rescued and one missing. An Al Jazeera report on the Bulgarian attack, by contrast, describes one person killed and one missing. Ukraine's Odesa regional military administration head, Oleh Kiper, separately described a Marshall Islands-flagged ship, one dead and seven injured, which does not match the other accounts. We cannot tell from the available reporting whether Kiper was describing the same vessel.
Romania's Interior Ministry reported the fire and rescue but named no cause. Zelensky called it a strike by two Russian drones on a civilian vessel in neutral waters. Romanian authorities have not named a suspect. The Romanian incident sits in a longer run of spillover: a Russian drone hit an apartment building in Romania in May, a stray Ukrainian maritime drone exploded in the port of Constanta in June, and Bucharest summoned Russia's ambassador in July after three drones were intercepted in a week.
The maritime security firm MARISKS called the attacks a significant escalation for commercial shipping in the western Black Sea, noting that incidents have now reached the economic zones of two NATO members. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen condemned the strikes and expressed solidarity with eastern-flank states. Radev warned that the attacks are disrupting Black Sea shipping and raising insurance costs, and that the war will keep expanding geographically if it is not ended.
