Drones attacked two merchant ships off Bulgaria's Black Sea coast overnight, sinking one vessel east of the village of Krapets and leaving 11 sailors missing, Bulgarian officials said on Tuesday — the second deadly sinking of a cargo ship in the area in a week. All 15 crew members of the second ship were rescued. Bulgaria's Prime Minister Rumen Radev said there was no conclusive evidence of who was responsible, but he summoned Russia's ambassador in Sofia and notified NATO and the European Union.
What happened to the two ships?
The first distress call came at about 1:30 a.m. local time (10:30 p.m. GMT on Monday) from a ship about 18 nautical miles east of the town of Byala, whose crew said three aerial drones had struck its deck and side, AFP reported. Border police rescued all 15 crew members — seven Ukrainians and eight Azerbaijanis — from the Malta-flagged, Odesa-registered Chelsea 3, which Radev said is Ukrainian-owned, and took them to the port of Varna; five were treated for what authorities believed were light injuries, and none was seriously injured, Reuters and AFP reported. The 136-metre general cargo ship was sailing from the Turkish port of Giresun to Giurgiulesti in Moldova, according to the Bulgarian maritime outlet Maritime.bg, cited by AFP.
A second ship was hit east of Krapets, further north, and sank, Radev said. Five of its 16 crew members were rescued by other merchant vessels and 11 were still missing on Tuesday, Bulgarian officials told both Reuters and CNN, and the Bulgarian Interior Ministry told CNN the missing crew were believed to be Syrian and Egyptian nationals and that the search was still under way on Tuesday afternoon. The sunken ship's identity was not settled in the reporting: CNN, citing the Interior Ministry, named it as the Guinea-Bissau-flagged HS Dignity, while Reuters reported that Bulgarian media had identified the vessel as the Azov Concord. A maritime source cited by AFP said the Azov Concord had not been hit and was taking part in the rescue operation, and that the sunken ship was probably the HS Dignity. This article therefore treats the name as unconfirmed.
Who does Bulgaria say carried out the attacks?
Bulgaria has not formally accused any country. Radev said after an emergency meeting of the government's Security Council that there was no solid and clear evidence to attribute the attacks to either side, but that the outcome benefited the Russian Federation, which was why he would summon Ambassador Eleonora Mitrofanova for a meeting on Tuesday, Reuters and AFP reported. There was no immediate comment from Moscow on the incidents, both wires reported. Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, accused Moscow directly on X, Reuters reported — an accusation, not a Bulgarian finding. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen condemned the attacks and said those responsible should be held accountable, and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said the alliance would keep working closely with its Black Sea allies and had already strengthened its posture on the eastern flank, CNN reported. Radev said Bulgaria would keep seeking NATO and EU help to strengthen surveillance of its air and sea space and to identify where the drones came from.
Why does this keep happening off Bulgaria?
It was the second wave of drone attacks on merchant shipping near Bulgaria in a week. On October 6, drones struck the Togo-flagged Alfa Watan, which sank, and the Palau-flagged Able, whose 18 crew members were rescued, about 70 nautical miles east of Byala inside Bulgaria's exclusive economic zone, AFP reported; Reuters reported that nine Syrian sailors and one Egyptian were lost at sea in that sinking. London's Joint War Committee has expanded its Black Sea high-risk listed area nearly two and a half times, to about 411,200 square kilometres, driving up insurance premiums, according to AFP. Reuters noted the wider pattern behind the sinkings: Russia has been bombing Ukraine's Black Sea ports, pushing Ukrainian grain traffic toward Danube river ports and shipping routes that run close to the coasts of NATO members Bulgaria and Romania, while Ukraine has increasingly targeted Russian grain-exporting ships in other parts of the Black Sea. Bulgaria, Türkiye and Romania already operate a joint mine countermeasures group in the Black Sea, AFP reported.
This is not financial advice. Contested points in this article — the sunken ship's identity and any attribution of the attacks — are presented as reported by the sources cited, with the disagreement between them stated in the text. No party had formally been accused by Bulgaria at publication time.
