Ukraine Warupdated 1h ago2 min read
Bulgaria Ends Search After Drone Strike Sinks Cargo Ship Off Byala Coast
Drone attack sank a cargo ship off Bulgaria's Black Sea coast; crew missing. A second vessel was hit and later rescued 18 crew.
Search ends after sinking
Bulgaria ended search operations after confirming no survivors were found following a drone strike that sank a cargo ship off the country’s coast in the Black Sea. Rumen Nikolov, the head of the country’s Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination Centre, told reporters on Wednesday, "There is no trace of the sailors," and he said the search stopped late on Tuesday and would not continue. Vice-Admiral Rumen Nikolov also told Nova TV that Bulgaria halted its search for the missing crew, saying, "There are no traces of the sailors from the first ship, and there will be none."
The strike hit two commercial vessels early on Tuesday, with one vessel catching fire and the other sinking about 70 nautical miles (130 km) off Bulgaria’s coast near the coastal town of Byala. The incident occurred in a so-called "responsible search and rescue zone" and not in the country’s territorial waters, which extend to 12 nautical miles off the coast, Nikolov said.
Blame and competing accounts
Rumen Radev described the attack as "absolutely unacceptable" and said Bulgaria’s authorities were investigating the origin of the drones. Volodymyr Zelenskyy blamed Russia for the drone strikes on the Bulgarian vessels, and the Guardian quoted Radev saying, "This is an unacceptable attack in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone." Radev told Reuters that it was unclear whether the drones came from Russia or from Ukraine, while Zelenskyy said an investigation jointly with Bulgaria’s navy had shown that Russia was behind the attack.
Ursula von der Leyen condemned the incident, and the BBC reported her view that attacks on civilian shipping were "unacceptable". Ukraine also tied the episode to the wider war, with Zelenskyy warning in a nightly address that Russia was planning a "massive strike" and saying Ukrainian services and the air force were ready to respond.
What comes next
Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Rumen Radev said that following the attack his government would approve the purchase of five more surface-to-air missile systems. Rumen Nikolov said searchers found "one overturned boat, three life rafts and debris from the ship’s equipment" from the sunken ship, while he said he had "no information about drone debris." The BBC reported that the second vessel, carrying grain, had 18 crew members rescued, including 11 Turkish and seven Indian nationals, while the crew of the sunken ship remained missing.
The Guardian said European Union envoys were expected to approve about 1,650 new designations under the bloc’s sanctions regime for Russia, with the majority focused on the country’s military industrial complex. Ukraine’s national grid operator ordered rolling blackouts in Kyiv after Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, with outages to begin at 3pm local time (1200 GMT) and last until the end of the day, according to the Guardian.