Drone strikes on Black Sea cargo ships point to wider European arc of Russia hybrid threats

The Alfa Watan, a ship sailing under the flag of Togo, and the Able, a vessel flying the flag of Palau, were targeted by naval and aerial drones on Tuesday (6 October) morning in the Black Sea near the Bulgarian coast. The Alfa Watan sank, and rescuers at the scene found only an overturned boat, life jackets, and fragments of the ship’s equipment, according to Bulgarian prime minister Rumen Radev. The 18-member crew of the Able caught fire, but was successfully evacuated to the port of Varna. “This is an unacceptable attack in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone,” Radev said after an emergency government meeting on Tuesday. Bulgaria had discussed the drone attack inside the EU and Nato, he added. It came after a drone also sank a Turkish-owned grain ship, the Royad Mammadov, killing two sailors, on Monday. But even though Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky was quick to blame Russia, the perpetrators have not been formally identified yet, in a grey-zone conflict in which deniability is a tactic. Russia and Ukraine have been escalating attacks on ships for several months in an effort to disrupt each other's export economies. And Moscow’s attacks have largely halted Ukraine’s maritime exports of agricultural products, while Kyiv’s attacks have forced Russia to seek alternative routes for exports. “The situation in the Black Sea is increasingly concerning,” said EU Commission’s president Ursula von der Leyen on X on Tuesday. Ukraine has “proposed concrete steps to de-escalate the situation”, also said Zelensky. But for all his good will, the attacks were just part of a broader deterioration in Europe's security environment, covering also Nato's eastern and southern borders. 'Shadow war' For Czech president Peter Pavel, speaking to Czech daily Deník N on 22 September, the most imminent danger came from a false-flag attack in Estonia or Latvia, to test Nato's resolve.