Who’s Sinking Ships Near NATO’s Coast — And Why Now?

Between 5 and 15 October 2026, drones hit at least seven merchant ships off Romania and Bulgaria, both members of NATO. Three sank. Two sailors were confirmed dead and at least 25 were missing, AP reported. On 17 October, Romanian F-16s shot down two jet-powered drones over Romania’s own waters.

So who is sending the Black Sea drones, and why now? The answer starts at a narrow river channel where the Danube meets the sea, and at the lines on the map where NATO’s protection ends.

Where have the Black Sea drones struck?

The first ship hit was the Royad Mammadov, on 5 October. Turkish-owned and carrying corn from Ukraine’s Danube port of Izmail, it sank in Romania’s exclusive economic zone. Two of its crew died, and 11 were rescued. Romania at first confirmed only a fire, while President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed “two Russian drones”.

The next day, drones hit two ships about 70 nautical miles (130 km) east of Byala, in Bulgaria’s economic zone. The Togo-flagged Alfa Watan, Turkish-run and bound for Sulina, sank, and none of its crew of about ten has been found. All 18 sailors aboard the Palau-flagged Able were rescued.

Early on 13 October, the Guinea-Bissau-flagged HS Dignity sank about 17 nautical miles off Krapets. Of its 16 crew, Syrian and Egyptian sailors, 10 or 11 are missing. A Syrian sailors’ union says one drone came from the air and two from the sea. The same night, three drones hit the Ukrainian-owned Chelsea 3 off Byala, and all 15 of its crew survived.

Off Romania

Then the strikes moved north. On the evening of 14 October, the Comoros-flagged tanker Yara J was hit at anchor 8 to 10 nautical miles off Sulina. That is inside Romania’s territorial waters, which reach 12 nautical miles (about 22 km) out. Early the next day, drones hit the San Marino-flagged tanker Wine Trader 13 nautical miles off Sulina, about a mile outside those waters. Seven of its 12 sailors are missing, six of them from Benin, a Romanian seafarers’ union says.

Date (2026)	Where	What was reported
5 October	Romania’s exclusive economic zone, near the Pescăruș platform	Royad Mammadov sank; 2 dead, 11 rescued
6 October	Bulgaria’s economic zone, about 70 nautical miles east of Byala	Alfa Watan sank, about 10 missing; Able hit, 18 rescued
13 October	Off Krapets and Byala, just outside Bulgaria’s territorial waters	HS Dignity sank, 10 or 11 missing; Chelsea 3 hit, 15 rescued
14 October	Inside Romanian territorial waters, 8 to 10 nautical miles off Sulina	Tanker Yara J hit at anchor; all 17 crew safe
15 October	About 1 nautical mile outside Romanian waters, 13 nautical miles off Sulina	Tanker Wine Trader hit; 7 of 12 crew missing
17 October	Over Romanian territorial waters, 20 to 25 km south-east of Sulina	Romanian F-16s shoot down 2 jet-powered drones

As of 22 October, no new strike on a ship off either coast had been reported since 15 October, and none of the missing had been reported found.

Drones have strayed into Romania dozens of times since 2022, often during Russian strikes on Ukraine’s Danube ports. Since July, Romanian jets have shot some down, one of them inside Romania’s waters off Sulina, the defence ministry said. What changed in October is the target: ships.

Who is behind the attacks? What each side says

No government has published hard proof of who launched the Black Sea drones, and NATO named no attacker after its ambassadors met on 20 October. Yet several governments have pointed at Russia. Three strands of circumstantial evidence stand out.

The targets. The ships hit were trading with the Danube or Ukraine, the risk consultancy Ambrey noted. Russia’s defence ministry says it hits ships carrying military cargo to Ukraine, though it has claimed none of the ships off Romania and Bulgaria.

The weapons. Romania identified the two drones shot down off Sulina as jet-powered Gerans, a Russian type. Their targets are unknown.

A NATO source. An unnamed NATO military source told Reuters that the drones which hit both tankers off Romania were “of Russian origin”. That is not an official NATO finding.

Each side’s account

Romania. On 15 October, Foreign Minister Oana Țoiu said Russia “bears full responsibility”. President Nicușor Dan called the attacks “attempts by Russia, in Romania and in Bulgaria, to destabilize our societies”. Yet Radu Miruță, who leads the defence ministry, said there was “no certainty” the drones were Russian.

Bulgaria. Prime Minister Rumen Radev told parliament on 14 October that “the outcome of all these attacks favors Russia”. Then he added: “The problem is that we cannot prove it.” Drone debris found aboard the Chelsea 3 is to be analysed with allied help, Bulgaria’s government said.

Russia. Russia denies involvement. Its embassy in Sofia said the first two ships hit off Bulgaria “were not among the targets hit by Russian armed forces”. Its ambassador, Eleonora Mitrofanova, did not rule out “a provocation by a third party”.

Ukraine. Kyiv blames Russia. Zelensky said Ukraine’s forces were not operating near the site of the 6 October strikes, AP reported.

So the evidence is circumstantial, and each side reads it its own way. The geography, however, is not in dispute.

Why does the Sulina channel matter so much?

Ukraine’s back door to the sea

Both tankers, and both drones shot down on 17 October, were within about 25 km of Sulina, where the Danube’s main shipping channel meets the sea.

Since August 2023, ships leaving Odesa have hugged the coast, through the territorial waters of Romania and Bulgaria. In other words, NATO’s coastline became Ukraine’s shipping lane. Then, after big ships stopped calling at Odesa in July 2026, much of Ukraine’s trade moved to the Danube. In September, the river carried 54% of its farm exports.

Most seagoing ships reach Ukraine’s river ports of Izmail and Reni through the Sulina channel. It is more than 60 km long and lies entirely inside Romania. Ukraine’s own Bystre channel is too shallow for most.

A queue inside NATO’s waters

The channel is a bottleneck. In early September, about 80 ships were queuing at Sulina, and those bound for Ukraine’s river ports waited up to 17 days.

On 16 September, the London insurers’ Joint War Committee listed almost the whole Black Sea as a war-risk area, except the territorial waters of Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria and Georgia. Three of those four are in NATO. Cover for voyages through Romania’s and Bulgaria’s economic zones then rose fivefold in two weeks, UkrAgroConsult reported. So most ships kept to the 12-mile strip.

So any attempt to choke Ukraine’s Danube trade at its narrowest point must reach into, or right up to, a NATO member’s waters.

Why would Russia want to cut Ukraine off from the sea?

Moscow’s reasoning is on the record. Russia quit the UN-backed grain deal in July 2023. Two days later, its defence ministry said ships heading for Ukrainian ports would be treated as “potential carriers of military cargo”.

In November 2025, Ukrainian sea drones hit two tankers of Russia’s shadow fleet off Turkey, the Kairos and the Virat. Moscow called such attacks piracy. On 2 December, Vladimir Putin said the most radical response would be “to cut Ukraine off from the sea”. Russia, he added, would consider striking ships of countries that help Ukraine if the attacks continued.

Why now?

The October strikes followed a summer in which the sea war turned on the ports. On 19 July, as the grain ship Golden Leo left port near Odesa, three Russian missiles hit it, Ukraine says. Ten people died, among them four Indian sailors and a Ukrainian pilot. On 12 August, Ukrainian strikes halted grain terminals at Novorossiysk, Russia’s main grain port.

At the Valdai Club on 1 October, Putin claimed Ukraine had damaged more than 100 Russian ships, and said Russia had “started to respond”.

So the timing fits three trends: Ukraine’s trade squeezed onto the Danube, ships crowding into NATO’s coastal strip, and Moscow saying it had begun to answer Ukraine’s sea war. None of that proves who launched the drones.

A shipping war on both sides

Ukraine fights the same kind of war at sea: for Kyiv, each shadow-fleet tanker hit is a blow to the money behind Russia’s war. Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said on 8 October that “both sides are engaged in tremendous attacks”. In mid-September, before the October strikes, the head of the UN’s shipping agency, Arsenio Domínguez, said: “In the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, it is not only one country attacking merchant vessels.”

The difference is geography: ships serving Ukraine must sail past Romania and Bulgaria to reach the Bosporus. For the roots of the war itself, see why Russia doesn’t want Ukraine in NATO.

Will Russia attack Romania? Why the strikes sit in NATO’s grey zone

No one outside the Kremlin can answer that for certain, and Putin said at Valdai that Russia has no intention of attacking anyone. What can be said is that the attacks fall into a grey zone that NATO’s treaty does not clearly cover.

Under the North Atlantic Treaty, Article 4 lets any ally call for consultations when it feels threatened. Article 5 treats an armed attack on one ally as an attack on all. Article 6 limits that to allied territory, and to allied forces, ships or aircraft there, in the Mediterranean or in the North Atlantic. The Black Sea is not named.

Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, a state is sovereign in its territorial sea, up to 12 nautical miles out. Its exclusive economic zone, up to 200 nautical miles, brings rights over fish, oil and gas, but not sovereignty. Only one ship, the Yara J, was hit inside a NATO member’s territorial waters. And most of the ships hit flew the flags of states far outside the alliance, such as Togo, Guinea-Bissau, Comoros and San Marino.

So the Black Sea drones hurt Romania and Bulgaria and leave sailors dead or missing, yet the attacks are hard to fit into Article 5. Whoever launched them, that grey zone may be the real weapon.

What Romania and Bulgaria have chosen

Both have avoided the treaty’s heavier tools. After a drone hit a block of flats in Galați in May, Romania chose not to invoke Article 4, which many see as a step towards Article 5, Mediafax reported. On 6 October, Radev said there were no grounds for Article 4 or 5, because the waters were legally neutral, AP reported.

Instead, both asked for help. On 16 October, Bulgaria formally asked NATO for combat aircraft, air defences and counter-drone systems. On 20 October, NATO ambassadors, sitting as the North Atlantic Council, met in Brussels at Romania’s request. Afterwards, NATO’s military spokesperson said allies had sent or would send more maritime patrol aircraft, radar systems and drones. Radev confirmed that a US Navy P-8 Poseidon patrol aircraft had begun flights over the Black Sea. Romania also wants a joint NATO command for the Black Sea.

NATO already runs Eastern Sentry, set up after drones crossed into Poland in 2025 (see our analysis of the Suwałki Gap).

The sea itself limits NATO

Turkey holds the only route from the Black Sea to the open ocean, through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, two of the chokepoints that control world trade. The 1936 Montreux Convention lets it bar warring states’ warships in wartime. In February 2022, Ankara warned every country against sending warships through the straits. In January 2024, it refused passage to two former British minehunters given to Ukraine.

Since 2022, analysts say, NATO’s naval presence in the Black Sea has rested on Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria. And in October 2025, Washington pulled an airborne brigade out of Romania without replacing it.

What to watch next

1. NATO’s new patrols. Will the extra aircraft and radars deter further strikes, and will Bulgaria get the jets it asked for?
2. The investigations. Bulgaria and Romania are both investigating. A formal finding on who launched the Black Sea drones would change the diplomacy.
3. A deal at sea. Turkey is pushing a moratorium on attacks on all civilian ships. But Russia’s foreign ministry rejected a Black Sea truce in August.
4. Traffic at Sulina. If shipowners avoid the channel, Ukraine’s Danube trade shrinks, whoever is to blame. The European Parliament is due to vote on a Black Sea resolution on 22 October.

Ships have sunk off NATO’s coast. The question is no longer only who sank them, but how far NATO’s coast really reaches. Read more analysis on Europe.

Frequently asked questions

Who is attacking ships in the Black Sea?

No government has published proof. Romania’s foreign minister says Russia “bears full responsibility”, and a NATO military source told Reuters the drones that hit two tankers off Romania were of Russian origin. Russia denies it. Bulgaria’s prime minister says the outcome favours Russia, but “we cannot prove it”.

Will Russia attack Romania?

Russia says it has no intention of attacking anyone, and Putin repeated that on 1 October 2026. Yet drones have crossed into Romania dozens of times since 2022. In October, a tanker was hit inside Romanian waters, and Romania’s president called the attacks Russian attempts to destabilise Romanian and Bulgarian society.

Could the Black Sea drones trigger NATO’s Article 5?

Not easily. Article 5 covers an armed attack on an ally, and Article 6 limits it to allied territory and to allied forces, ships or aircraft in named areas, which leave out the Black Sea. Most ships were hit outside territorial waters, under non-allied flags. On 20 October, NATO said allies would send extra patrol aircraft, radars and drones instead.

What is the Sulina channel?

The Sulina channel is the branch of the Danube that seagoing ships use to reach the river from the sea. It is more than 60 km long and lies entirely in Romania. Ukraine’s river ports of Izmail and Reni depend on it for larger ships.

What is a Geran drone?

Geran is the name Russia gives its versions of the Iranian-designed Shahed attack drone. The two shot down over Romanian waters on 17 October were jet-powered, Romanian officials said. They flew at about 450 km/h, more than twice the speed of the propeller drones Romania had downed before.