Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Rumen Radev announced that drones attacked two commercial vessels in the Black Sea on Tuesday, resulting in one ship sinking and multiple personnel injuries. The incidents occurred approximately 70 nautical miles off Bulgaria’s coast around 3am in the nation’s exclusive economic zone.
The Togo-flagged vessel Alfa Watan sustained critical structural damage and sank at the scene of the attack. Authorities initiated a search operation for the vessel’s crew, whose fate remained unclear. The second vessel, the Palau-flagged Able, caught fire following the strike. A Bulgarian ferry and naval fast boat rescued all 18 crew members aboard the Able, though two sailors sustained serious injuries and were transported to a hospital in Varna.
Radev condemned the attacks as violations of international and maritime law, characterizing them as “absolutely unacceptable.” The Able was reportedly transporting wheat and traveling southward, while the Alfa Watan was heading north with undisclosed cargo. Authorities were monitoring the scene for potential environmental hazards, including possible oil spills.
The source of the drones was not immediately identified, though the dual attack followed another incident the previous day involving a ship that caught fire and sank off the Romanian coast, which Ukraine attributed to Russian drones. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described that earlier strike as a Russian attack on a civilian vessel in neutral waters.
Radev warned that the expanding conflict was significantly disrupting Black Sea shipping operations, raising insurance costs and complicating maritime commerce. Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar expressed Budapest’s solidarity with Bulgaria following the attacks.
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