Reuters
source: Reuters
The crew of a merchant ship was missing on Tuesday after the vessel sank in the Black Sea off NATO member Bulgaria following a drone strike that Prime Minister Rumen Radev described as a gross violation of international law.
It was not immediately clear who carried out the attack by air and sea drones about 70 nautical miles (130 km) off the coastal town of Byala in eastern Bulgaria, but there are growing concerns about hybrid attacks by Russia as it wages war in Ukraine.
Shipping sources said it appeared to be the first such attack in the waters of Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone.
Radev said it was unclear whether the drones came from Russia or from Ukraine, the BTA news agency reported. Bulgaria does not border either country but it holds a strategic position in the Black Sea, where both Ukraine and Russia have major ports.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking in his nightly video address, said an investigation jointly with Bulgaria’s navy showed that Russia was behind the attack.
“The Ukrainian Defence Forces were conducting no operations in this part of the sea,” he said.
