Although security in the Baltic Sea and the threat of Russian provocation there are the subject of regular public debate, security in the Black Sea is a subject that sometimes gets less attention in the context of Russia's war in Ukraine even though the Black Sea is to a degree an active frontline in the war. There are multiple reasons why the Black Sea's security is such a complex issue, but two incidents in recent days have highlighted just how precarious the situation there is. On October 6, two cargo ships — the Alfa Watan and the Able — were struck by drones in the Bulgarian exclusive economic zone in the Black Sea.
The Alfa Watan sank, and its crew has not been recovered. Bulgaria conducted a search and rescue operation, which was called off on Wednesday morning. The crew of the Able, which was damaged, was rescued by a passing Bulgarian ship.
Two crew members were taken to the military hospital in Varna. The day before, another cargo ship — the Royad Mammadov — was struck by a drone and sank off the coast of Romania. Two crew members lost their lives.
These are not isolated incidents. In the past few months there have been multiple attacks on cargo ships carrying grain from Ukraine. As a result, doubt is increasingly being cast on the belief that the western part of the Black Sea — the area off the coast of Bulgaria and Romania — is relatively safe.
"Тhe Black Sea front is clearly expanding, and we should no longer look only to the Baltic Sea as a potential avenue for escalation and aggressive actions," said Ruslan Trad, global security expert and non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab. Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev downplayed the attack on the ships, remarking that ships are constantly being sunk in the Black Sea and that Tuesday's drone attacks were "probably not the most serious incident." Bulgaria's government called Tuesday's attack on the two vessels an "absolutely unacceptable violation of international law" but refrained from calling on Russia to end its war against Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on the other hand, was unequivocal.
He said that the Ukrainian military had assured Bulgaria that it was not responsible for the attack and pointed the finger squarely at Russia. After a meeting of the National Security Council on Wednesday, a declaration was issued, which once again did not name the source of the threat in the Black Sea. Radev stated that the cargo and the direction of travel of the ships "logically speaking" provide grounds for a hypothesis pointing to Russia but stressed that there is no concrete evidence.
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