The Guinea-Bissau-flagged cargo ship Dignity sank after it was hit by a military strike. Five sailors were rescued, while a search for the other 11 crew members continues, Varna district governor Mario Smrkov said.
Rescuers evacuated all 15 crew members from the Ukrainian-operated coastal freighter Chelsea 3, sailing under the Maltese flag, with five receiving treatment for minor injuries, Radev said in a video posted to social media.
The crew, which included seven Ukrainian citizens and eight Azerbaijan citizens, reported the ship’s deck and hull were hit by three aerial drones.
The strikes on the two ships occurred 20 miles and 21 miles from the Bulgarian coast.
During an emergency meeting of Bulgaria’s Security Council on Tuesday, Radev called the attacks “absolutely unacceptable” and said Bulgaria was seeking NATO and European Union assistance.
While authorities do not possess clear evidence on who was responsible for the drone attacks, “it makes no sense for Ukraine to destroy its own ships in the Black Sea, and the results of these strikes favor Russia's interests,” Radev told the Russian Ambassador in Sofia during a meeting on Tuesday, the government’s press office reported.
The ambassador said that she does not have any information from the Russian defense ministry related to the recent attacks on commercial vessels in the Black Sea but added that she did not rule out the possibility that “these attacks represent a provocation by a third party.”
Radev has said that such attacks are unacceptable and that Bulgaria will continue to investigate the attacks together with its EU and NATO allies to establish the truth.
