Flames aboard two chemical tankers in the Black Sea have triggered an urgent search for missing sailors and renewed scrutiny of drone activity near NATO waters, after Romanian officials said Russian drones strayed into Romania’s airspace overnight.
Romanian authorities, however, did not directly blame the drones for the fires that erupted on the vessels.
The latest incidents come against a tense backdrop: over the past 10 days, drones have struck at least five other cargo ships off the coasts of Romania and neighbouring NATO ally Bulgaria.
Those earlier attacks, which occurred just outside NATO territorial waters, left at least 23 sailors lost.
According to officials, the two ships that caught fire overnight were both anchored in the Black Sea near the entrance to the canal that leads out of the Danube River — a vital corridor Ukraine has leaned on as Russia attacks Ukraine’s own Black Sea ports.
Romania’s naval authority said it received a distress alert from the San Marino-flagged tanker Wine Trader. Seven of the ship’s 12 crew members were reported missing, while four were safe.
Earlier, a separate vessel — the Comoros-flagged chemical and oil tanker Yara Jalso — also caught fire. Romanian authorities initially said it was unclear whether the ship had been attacked. All crew members aboard were reported safe.
Both Wine Trader and Yara J caught fire near the mouth of the Danube River’s Sulina Canal
Romania, which shares a 614km border with Ukraine — much of it following the Danube — has logged repeated incursions into its airspace by Russian drones over the past four years.
Officials said both Wine Trader and Yara J caught fire near the mouth of the Danube River’s Sulina Canal on the Black Sea. The area is a common anchorage point for ships waiting to transit, often held up by weather and congestion.
In Brussels, Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev said the European Union is set to consider a moratorium aimed at halting attacks on civilian shipping in the Black Sea.
“It is absolutely a fragrant violation of international law and the law of the sea. So we are going to implement any measures to calm down the situation and today we are going to discuss the proposed moratorium to stop attacking on civilian ships within the Black Sea,” he said.
Mr Radev said Bulgaria has its own suspicions and that he raised them directly with Moscow’s representative. “We have our assumptions. We have certain assumptions, and I expressed our assumptions in front of the Russian ambassador. I summoned the Russian ambassador in Bulgaria because we don’t believe that Ukraine will attack its own ships and crews. There is no logic here. So the results of this attack favour Russia.
“However, we don’t have any solid evidence that the drones are Russian. We have tried to do our best to investigate one of the survived ships. We sent there special crews.They searched the ship, but they found nothing.”
He said one damaged vessel, the Chelsea 3, is being towed to a Bulgarian harbour and that authorities plan to intensify their inquiry once it docks. “we’ll launch a full terror investigation trying to find any drone debris. Then we’ll have solid, solid evidence to blame any of the countries,” Mr Radev said.
A surge in attacks on Black Sea shipping tied to the Russia-Ukraine war in recent months has raised fears of a wider global food crunch, given that both countries are major grain exporters.
Russia has been bombing Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, pushing Kyiv to depend more heavily on Danube River ports and routes that run close to the Romanian and Bulgarian coasts. Ukraine, meanwhile, has targeted Russian ships near the mouth of the Don River in the Azov Sea.
