Eleven sailors were missing at sea Tuesday after a ship was sunk by a drone attack off the Bulgarian coast, likely the second deadly cargo ship sinking in the region in a week, prompting Bulgaria to summon the Russian ambassador.
Two cargo ships were hit by drones overnight and one was sunk, Bulgarian officials said. Bulgaria has not explicitly accused Russia of being responsible for the attacks, but Prime Minister Rumen Radev said the outcome of the attacks “benefits the Russian Federation.”
Moscow made no immediate comment on the incidents.
“This is absolutely unacceptable: another attack in the immediate vicinity of Bulgarian territorial waters,” Radev said in a televised speech.
These attacks were also condemned by Ukraine and the EU.
“The Black Sea has become a new front of escalation of the Russian war in Ukraine,” declared on X the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. “Those responsible should be held accountable.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Tuesday on X that the strike “once again demonstrates Moscow’s deliberate disregard for civilian lives.”
“The Black Sea is a lifeline for global food security. Russia is attacking it to weaponize hunger and take the world hostage,” he said.
Speaking by telephone on Tuesday to von der Leyen and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Radev called for their support to strengthen his country’s maritime and air surveillance, the Bulgarian government said in a statement.
NATO will continue to adjust its military presence on its eastern flank “as needed,” Rutte said.
Bulgarian authorities said five crew members had been rescued, but 11 of them were still missing from the ship which sank off the coast of the village of Krapets. President Iliana Iotova identified the ship as the Guinea-flagged cargo ship HS Dignity and said a search and rescue operation was underway.
Another ship, the Maltese-flagged Chelsea 3, was also hit by three drones overnight, Bulgarian officials said. The entire crew of that ship – seven Ukrainians and eight Azerbaijanis – were rescued and none were seriously injured.
A week ago, nine Syrian sailors and one Egyptian were lost at sea due to a ship that sank when it was hit by drones in the Bulgarian exclusive economic zone in the Black Sea. Another ship was also hit that night, but the crew was rescued.
After meeting Radev in Sofia, Russian Ambassador Eleonora Mitrofanova said she had no information from the Russian Defense Ministry about attacks on commercial ships in the Black Sea, but did not rule out that it was a provocation by a third party, the Bulgarian government said.
More than four and a half years after Moscow launched a war with its full-scale invasion in 2022, Black Sea shipping is increasingly embroiled in a protracted battle for economic endurance.
Both Ukraine and Russia are among the world’s largest grain exporters.
Russia has bombed Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, forcing Ukraine to rely increasingly on Danube river ports and sea routes near the coasts of NATO members Bulgaria and Romania.
Ukraine, for its part, is increasingly targeting Russian grain-exporting ships in other parts of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, at the mouth of the Don.
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