NATO intelligence has confirmed Russian sea drones struck and sank a civilian container vessel just outside alliance member Bulgaria's territorial waters last week, a NATO official told Newsweek. The news came shortly after Western countries pledged to beef up their military footprint in the Black Sea in a bid to shield commercial shipping from the brunt of the Ukraine war. The Greek-owned Contship Jet succumbed after being struck by three naval drones off the Bulgarian coast east of Cape Kaliakra, in the western Black Sea, on October 28, officials said.
The Liberian-flagged vessel was traveling from the Israeli port of Haifa to Constanța in eastern Romania. Three Bulgarian Navy ships were dispatched for a search and rescue operation to retrieve the 18 crew members on board. No casualties were reported.
It was the latest in a spree of often lethal attacks on shipping in the Black Sea, a new—and uncomfortable—spilling over of the long-running war in Ukraine into NATO territory. It has further ratcheted up tensions between Moscow and NATO amid concerns the Kremlin is probing the alliance's response to different types of assaults. The NATO official said specific design features of electronic equipment marked the unmanned surface vessels (USVs) as Russian-made, and said a second intelligence source identified the seafaring drones as Russian with "100 percent certainty." The official did not elaborate further.
Some analysts had tentatively described the drones as Moscow-made. Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev swerved confirming Russia was responsible, while pledging to summon the Russian envoy to Sofia should this be found to be the case. The NATO official said the working assumption was Russia is targeting commercial ships deliberately, but does not necessarily intend for the strikes to take place within the territorial waters of NATO members.
Bulgarian authorities said a French sea patrol aircraft had picked up the drones roughly half an hour before they slammed into the ship, allowing the crew to evacuate. France's military posted an image to social media on Friday, showing an unidentified black USV captured on camera by a French Atlantique 2 maritime patrol aircraft before impact. The image prompted speculation it could show a Russian Murena-300S or a variant of Moscow's Vizir drone because of similarities in the shape and position of key components.
Kyiv does not have a major navy or large warships, but its military, security and intelligence agencies have wielded long-range missiles, as well as airborne and waterborne drones, to hit a variety of Russian targets in the Black Sea. Sea drones are often used as kamikaze weapons, producing dramatic footage of the waterborne platforms smashing into Russian ships costing far more than the unmanned systems. But they're also deployed to scope out potential targets or carry out reconnaissance missions around a particular area.
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