Bulgarian authorities have stopped searching for crew members from the cargo ship Alfa Watan after drones struck two commercial vessels in the country’s Black Sea exclusive economic zone, confirming that no survivors were found from the vessel that sank within minutes of the attack.
Prime Minister Rumen Radev told reporters on Tuesday that sea and aerial drones hit the ships around 3 a.m. local time, roughly 70 to 80 nautical miles east of the coastal town of Byala. The Togo-flagged Alfa Watan suffered critical damage and went down at the scene. The Palau-flagged Able caught fire, but Bulgarian rescue craft evacuated all 18 people on board, including two sailors with severe injuries who were flown to a hospital in Varna.
What rescuers recovered from the water
By late Tuesday, Bulgaria’s Maritime Search and Rescue Center said the operation for the Alfa Watan would not resume. Initial reports suggest the freighter may have sunk in about three minutes. Search teams found an overturned lifeboat, three deployed life rafts and scattered equipment from the ship, but no sailors.
Maritime specialists cited by local media have put the missing crew at about 10 people, though Bulgarian officials have not published a final manifest count. A distress signal from the Alfa Watan was logged at 2:54 a.m., with a second alert from the Able at 3:23 a.m., according to rescue coordinators.
The Able was carrying wheat southbound while the Alfa Watan was heading north toward Sulina, Romania, Radev said. Equasis shipping records list both vessels as managed by Turkey-based companies. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv verified details with Sofia and described the incident as a combined maritime and aerial drone attack, blaming Russia. Bulgarian investigators have not publicly identified the drones’ origin.
Why the location matters for NATO shipping
The strikes occurred inside Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone, the band of waters where Sofia exercises resource rights beyond its 12-nautical-mile territorial sea. Radev called the attack “absolutely unacceptable” and a “flagrant violation of maritime law,” stressing that commercial crews should not be targeted while moving civilian cargo.
The episode follows a separate drone strike on Monday that set a Turkish-owned grain carrier ablaze off Romania, killing two crew members, and adds to a string of Black Sea incidents that have pushed up war-risk insurance and rerouted some traffic away from Ukraine’s western ports. NATO allies Germany and Romania have condemned recent attacks on merchant shipping, but Bulgaria’s public statements so far emphasize investigation and rescue rather than attribution.
Environmental monitoring and next steps
Authorities said they were watching for oil spills or other pollution from the sunken hull, though the Alfa Watan’s cargo had not been confirmed when Radev briefed reporters. Environmental teams typically sample the surface when a general cargo ship goes down in deep water, because fuel and lubricants can escape even if bulk grain or containers are not involved.
Sofia is expected to share forensic material from recovered drone fragments, if any, with allied maritime security channels. Shipping insurers, already repricing Black Sea voyages after the Romania sinking, will likely treat the Alfa Watan loss as another data point in premium models for vessels transiting NATO’s southeastern flank. For the families of the missing crew, the halted search closes a narrow window; for regulators, the open question is whether the western Black Sea remains navigable without escorts or new reporting rules for drone traffic.