Merchant vessel sinks after drone strike off Bulgaria, PM summons Russian envoy

A merchant vessel sank after drones struck two ships off Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, Prime Minister Rumen Radev said.

He suggested Russia might be behind the attacks and said he had summoned its ambassador.

One ship sank about 17 nautical miles (31 km) east of Krapets, with a single crew member rescued, he said. The other, a Ukrainian‑owned vessel, was hit by three drones roughly 18 nautical miles from Byala; all 15 crew members were rescued, he added.

The strikes follow a similar incident a week earlier when two other commercial ships were attacked by sea‑ and air‑launched drones in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone. One of those, the Alfa Watan, sank; all ten crew members, nine of them Syrian, are presumed dead.

Radev called an emergency meeting on Tuesday and said he had summoned Russian ambassador Eleonora Mitrofanova. While no definitive proof attributes blame to either side, he argued that the outcome favors the Russian Federation.

As a NATO member, Bulgaria’s prime minister said he would soon speak with Secretary‑General Mark Rutte. Radev had previously requested technical assistance from NATO and the EU to investigate the October 6 attacks, noting that it remained unclear whether Russia or Ukraine was responsible.

Radev assumed office this summer and has repeatedly denied accusations of being pro‑Russian.

Ukraine has directly blamed Russia for the latest attacks, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned on Tuesday that the Black Sea is turning into “another front of escalation in the Russian war against Ukraine,” calling the situation unacceptable.

Russia’s military has not issued any public comment on the matter. It has recently stepped up attacks on vessels in the Black Sea, especially on its western flank, as part of its war against Ukraine.

On the same day that two ships were struck off Bulgaria last week, Ukraine attacked an oil tanker in the Russian Black Sea port of Sochi.

Moscow claims it is targeting ships carrying weapons and dual‑use cargo to Ukrainian ports, pointing to attacks last week in the ports of Mykolaiv and Chornomorsk as well as another incident in the Black Sea.

Kyiv and its European allies counter that merchant ships transporting grain and other civilian goods are the ones being hit.

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