Ship Sunk Off Bulgaria’s Economic Zone in Latest Black Sea Drone Attack

Two commercial ships were hit by drones off the Bulgarian coast on Tuesday, Oct. 6, sinking one and leaving its crew missing.The origin of the drones has not yet been established. Bulgarian authorities have launched a search operation and convened an emergency government meeting.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.Euronews reported that Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev was due to make a statement at the start of the emergency meeting, scheduled for 11:15 a.m. local time.The crew of the sunken vessel remained missing, while all 18 crew members aboard the second ship were rescued after abandoning the vessel following a fire, Bulgarian public broadcaster BNR reported, citing Rumen Nikolov, head of rescue operations in Varna.Euronews noted the attack as the first to take place in a NATO member’s economic zone.Bulgarian shipping outlet Maritime.bg identified the vessels as the Able and the Alfa Watan, the latter of which sank.The crew of the Able was taken aboard the Bulgarian ferry Dioscuria, with some crew members reportedly injured.According to vessel-tracking website VesselFinder, the Alfa Watan was sailing under the Togo flag toward the Romanian port of Sulina. Its last known location was around 70 nautical miles off Bulgaria’s coast shortly after 2 a.m. local time on Tuesday.The ships were the latest casualties in an escalating drone war in the Black Sea between Kyiv and Moscow, with the Kremlin targeting commercial vessels in retaliation for Kyiv’s attacks on its oil infrastructure and tankers. Other Topics of Interest Ukraine Targets Major Russian Oil Hub During Massive Drone Attack on Moscow Region Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said 650 drones were launched toward Moscow between the evening of Oct. 5 and the morning of Oct. 6. The strikes came just a day after a Turkish-owned cargo ship carrying grain was attacked by at least one drone in the Black Sea and later sank after catching fire.A separate attack on commercial shipping was reported by Ukrainian authorities on Oct. 6.Oleh Kiper, head of Ukraine’s Odesa Regional Military Administration (OVA), said a Russian drone struck a commercial vessel carrying rapeseed oil in the Black Sea.“A commercial vessel flying the flag of the Marshall Islands and loaded with rapeseed oil was damaged by a Russian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) strike,” Kiper said on Telegram.The vessel’s superstructure was damaged and caught fire. One person was killed and seven others were injured, according to Kiper.Bulgaria’s new governmentBulgaria, a former Eastern Bloc country that joined NATO in 2004, elected a pro-Russian government in April 2026 after years of political turmoil, having undergone seven national elections within four years.Radev, the country’s pro-Russian former president, won April’s parliamentary election in a landslide, with his government subsequently announcing plans to halt all weapon deliveries to Kyiv after being a major supplier of Soviet-standard artillery shells to Ukraine.Sofia also reportedly vetoed EU sanctions on Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and a confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, from the EU sanctions list. Kyiv Post is Ukraine’s first and oldest English news organization, reporting since 1995. Its international reach – 97% of readers are outside of Ukraine – make it truly Ukraine’s global voice.