“Unacceptable” attacks, NATO informed: two new ships struck in the Black Sea, off the coast of Bulgaria

Two new ships were struck near the Bulgarian coast, Prime Minister Rumen Radev announced on Tuesday, saying he wanted to summon the Russian ambassador after attacks described as “unacceptable” of which he informed NATO.

A first signal “was received at 1:30 a.m. (local time) concerning a ship in distress” and according to the crew who were able to be fully rescued, the boat flying the Maltese flag and belonging to Ukraine was “hit by three aerial drones,” wrote Rumen Radev on Facebook. Then “another ship was hit” and “sank”, he added, specifying that “a member of the crew” was “saved”.

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Last week, two merchant ships were already struck by drones in Bulgaria's exclusive economic zone in the Black Sea. One had sunk and its crew, made up of nine Syrians and an Egyptian, is still missing, while the 18 sailors from the second were rescued.

“The result is to Russia’s advantage”

“This new attack on commercial ships in the immediate vicinity of Bulgarian territorial waters is absolutely unacceptable,” Rumen Radev said on Tuesday. According to his government, the first strike occurred 18 nautical miles east of Byala and the second 17 miles east of Krapets, two locations on the coast of the Eastern European country.

The crew of the first ship, “Chesea 3”, registered in the Ukrainian port of Odessa, consisted of seven Ukrainian citizens and eight Azerbaijani citizens. The crew was transported, again according to Prime Minister Rumen Radev, to the Bulgarian port of Varna and five of its members “receive medical assistance due to minor injuries”.

“We do not have solid and clear evidence to make accusations against either side, but logic shows that the result is to Russia's advantage,” Rumen Radev stressed. On “Russia is attacking it in order to weaponize hunger and take the world hostage,” he said. A member of NATO and the European Union, Bulgaria is calling for more support to deal with these attacks.