Drone strikes damage two cargo ships off Bulgaria, injure crew and sink one vessel
Unexplained drone strikes hit commercial ships off Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast on 13 October, sinking one vessel and injuring 12 crew on the Malta-flagged cargo ship Chelsea 3. The incidents deepen uncertainty over the safety of key shipping routes near Bulgaria and Romania as authorities probe who launched the attacks and which ships were targeted.
Drone strikes on commercial shipping off Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast have turned a busy trade corridor into a security problem, with one vessel reported sunk and a dozen crew injured.
Bulgarian prime minister Rumen Radev said two ships were struck by drones about 24 kilometers off Bulgaria’s shore on 13 October. One vessel sank and another was damaged. He said the origins of the ships, their cargo and the source of the drones were all still unknown.
Separately the same day, another report described an attack on the cargo vessel Chelsea 3 about 18 miles from the coastal town of Byala, in what was called the second such incident in a week in roughly the same area. Chelsea 3 sails under a Maltese flag and is managed by Odesa-based Black Sea Shipping Management. Twelve crew members, nationals of Ukraine and Azerbaijan, were injured.
The previous attack in this patch of sea was reported 70 kilometers east of Byala. The information released so far doesn’t clarify whether Chelsea 3 is one of the two ships Radev referred to, or whether it was hit in a separate strike. Bulgarian authorities have not publicly confirmed that the vessel which sank was Chelsea 3 or provided an alternative identification.
Despite that uncertainty, the pattern is clear enough to worry those who rely on this route. The waters off Bulgaria and Romania form part of the remaining export paths for cargo moving to and from Ukraine and the wider region. Drone strikes on ships roughly 20 to 30 kilometers off Bulgaria’s coast raise questions about how safe those lanes now are for crews and cargoes that are meant to be civilian.
Diplomatically, Sofia has summoned the Russian ambassador, according to separate reporting, underscoring how quickly attacks at sea near Bulgaria can trigger political friction with a major military power. There has been no public attribution of responsibility for the drones, no claim of responsibility and no official account of where the systems were launched from.
Shipowners, crews and insurers will now be watching for specific moves from Bulgaria and its neighbors: navigation warnings, routing advice, or visible increases in patrols and surveillance along the country’s Black Sea coast. Any public identification of the ship that sank, or a formal statement assigning blame for the drone launches, would sharply change how operators assess the risk of transiting near Byala in the coming days.
Sources
- OSINT