Drones hit two ships off Bulgaria, one sinks, one burns
Two cargo ships were struck in Bulgaria's Black Sea economic zone, a day after a corn freighter was sunk off Romania. The drones' owner is unknown, and Sofia is split over the response.
A drone attack on two cargo ships in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone in the Black Sea took place on Tuesday, October 6, the office of President Iliana Yotova confirmed, and according to Bulgarian media one of the ships has sunk. Bulgaria and Romania, both EU and NATO members and both neighbors of Serbia, have now had the war in Ukraine arrive in their own waters two days in a row.
What is known about the ships and the location
The vessels hit were the Togo-flagged cargo ship Alfa Watan (IMO 7510884) and the Palau-flagged cargo ship Able (IMO 9001136). Neither sailed under the Bulgarian flag. According to Bulgarian news portals, the Alfa Watan suffered severe hull damage and sank east of Cape Sveti Atanas and the town of Byala. A fire broke out on the Able, and all 18 crew members abandoned the vessel.
The sailors were picked up by the Bulgarian ferry Dioscuria, which was redirected to the scene. Some of those rescued were injured and received first aid on the ferry, while Bulgarian units are coordinating their transport to medical facilities on land. Romanian coast guard vessels and a helicopter are also taking part in the search, according to the Romanian Interior Ministry.
Sources disagree on the distance. TASS says the rescue operation is taking place about 80 nautical miles from the Bulgarian coast, Novinite writes about roughly 80 miles, and in one of its headlines about a distance of 80 kilometers from Byala. The Bulgarian president said in a statement only that two ships were hit by drones in the Bulgarian zone, with no further details.
What do we know about the Alfa Watan crew?
In the first hours there were no official figures on the fate of the sunken ship’s crew, according to Ukraine’s UNN and Russia’s TASS. Novinite later wrote that the Romanian Interior Ministry had reported two dead and 11 rescued in connection with the incident. Those are exactly the numbers the same ministry gave a day earlier for a different ship, sunk in the Romanian zone, so it may be a repeated figure, but the sources do not confirm that. Until the Bulgarian authorities publish their own toll, the number for the Alfa Watan remains unconfirmed.
It is also unknown whose drones they were. The portal Maritime.bg writes that the attacks were coordinated and that commercial vessels in the area were the target, while the circumstances and the owner of the aircraft, according to Novinite, have yet to be investigated. Moscow had not commented in the sources we reviewed.
A day earlier: the Royad Mammadov in Romanian waters
On Monday, October 5, at about 11 a.m. local time, the ship Royad Mammadov caught fire and sank in the Romanian economic zone, about 30 nautical miles south of Sfantu Gheorghe in Tulcea County. The Turkish-owned vessel, flagged in St. Kitts and Nevis, was carrying corn from the Ukrainian port of Izmail to Italy. Citizens of Azerbaijan and India were aboard.
The Romanian ministry said 11 crew members were rescued and two bodies were found. It did not state the cause of the fire. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed Russian drones for the attack:
“Russia consistently chooses terror and the sinking of civilian ships over normal maritime navigation.”
Zelensky wrote this on social media on October 5, claiming that two Russian drones hit the ship in neutral waters. According to him, the captain was killed, and the fate of one crew member was still unknown at the time. The Romanian authorities have not determined the cause of the fire, and Russia has not commented.
In its statement about that ship, the Romanian Interior Ministry said: “Eleven crew members were rescued. Two deceased persons were also found.”
Urgent meeting in Sofia and a dispute over the Consultative Council
Prime Minister Rumen Radev called an urgent meeting with the ministries of defense, interior, transport and environment, the president’s office and the security services. A media address was announced for 11:15. Novinite reports that Radev described the attack as an unacceptable violation of international law.
The opposition meanwhile put pressure on the president. The demand is that Yotova convene the Consultative Council for National Security, a body whose members include ministers, heads of the services and representatives of all parliamentary groups. By law it meets at least once every three months, and Yotova, who took office in January 2026, has not convened it once. After the explosions and fire at the Emco arms factory in September she said she was “considering” it, but no session was held.
Ivaylo Mirchev, co-chair of Democratic Bulgaria, said:
“Today these merchant ships were hit in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone. Is Mrs. Yotova ready to convene such a Consultative Council for National Security?”
Mirchev added that the war is already 300 kilometers from Bulgaria and that there are sunken ships in its zone. The leader of the We Continue the Change party, Assen Vassilev, said in a statement carried by the Sofia Globe:
“Unfortunately, it is obvious that at this moment we do not have a real president of the Republic of Bulgaria, a supreme commander.”
Vassilev also recalled that the chief of the General Staff has already resigned over disagreements with the political leadership, despite the army’s doubled budget. Andrey Gyurov, a presidential candidate backed by Democratic Bulgaria and others, who is second to Yotova in the polls, wrote that the president had not said a single word about the attack on Bulgarian territory. In the sources we reviewed, Yotova had not publicly responded to the demand for a session by then.
The dispute also has an electoral backdrop: Yotova is fighting for a presidential mandate in the autumn elections, and according to the Sofia Globe her campaign canceled all campaign events for Tuesday. Prime Minister Radev’s address after the urgent meeting will be Sofia’s first official response to the attack.
