Drones sank two cargo ships and damaged a third inside the exclusive economic zones of NATO member states for the first time, killing at least two sailors and leaving others missing.
On October 6, the Togo-flagged cargo ship Alfa Watan sank and the Palau-flagged Able was set ablaze after multiple sea and aerial drones attacked them about 128 kilometres (80 miles) off Bulgaria's coast. A Bulgarian ferry evacuated the Able's 18 crew, with two severely injured mariners flown to a hospital in Varna. Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev called the incident "an unacceptable attack in Bulgaria's exclusive economic zone" and "a blatant violation of international law and maritime law."
A day earlier, the Turkish-owned cargo ship Royad Mammadov was struck inside Romania's economic zone, caught fire and sank. Eleven crew were rescued, one remains missing and two were killed; the vessel had been carrying corn loaded in the Ukrainian port of Ismail.
Ursula von der Leyen called the strikes on the three vessels "increasingly concerning" and said the EU stands "in full solidarity with our Member States on the Eastern flank," while cautioning that the circumstances were "still being established" and naming no probable attacker. Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a joint investigation with Bulgaria's navy found the latest strikes were "a Russian combined attack using both sea and aerial drones," and that Ukraine's military was not operating in that part of the Black Sea.
The notable shift is the weapon class, not just the target. Sea and aerial drones are cheap enough to use at scale and now precise enough to sink freighters in open water — a capability that until recently belonged to navies.
The strikes sit inside a pattern European governments describe as hybrid warfare: drones recovered near Romania's Neptun Deep gas project, a foiled explosive-drone attack on Ukrainian cargo aircraft at Leipzig Airport, an arson attack on Estonia's Milrem Robotics and a fire at a Polish satellite station under investigation as sabotage. Whether NATO members can agree on a collective response to a nuclear-armed adversary remains the open question.
