{"id":2270,"date":"2026-10-07T15:03:49","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T10:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2270"},"modified":"2026-10-07T15:03:49","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T10:03:49","slug":"bulgaria-halts-rescue-operation-for-crew-of-sunken-ship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2270","title":{"rendered":"Bulgaria halts rescue operation for crew of sunken ship"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Bulgaria has halted its search for the missing crew of a ship that sank after being hit by a drone on Tuesday about 70 \u200bnautical miles off its coast, Vice-Admiral Rumen Nikolov of the Maritime Administration \u200cExecutive Agency told Nova TV on Wednesday.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Early on Tuesday, two ships<\/a> were hit in a drone attack in Bulgaria\u2019s Black Sea exclusive economic zone.<\/p>\n

One sank and the other was damaged. The crew \u200bof the damaged ship were rescued, but the crew of the sunken one \u200bremain missing.<\/p>\n

Nikolov said the rescue operation for the crew of the \u2060sunken ship would not resume on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no traces of the sailors from \u200bthe first ship, and there will be none. There is also no information about drone \u200bremains,\u201d he said on a Nova TV morning show.<\/p>\n

\u201cA boat, three life rafts and parts of the ship\u2019s equipment have been found.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear who carried out the attack involving air \u200band sea drones in waters off the coastal town of Byala in eastern Bulgaria, \u200bbut there are growing concerns about hybrid attacks<\/a> by Russia as it wages war in Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nikolov said the \u200cincident occurred \u2060in a so-called \u201cresponsible search and rescue zone\u201d and not in the country\u2019s territorial waters, which extend to 12 nautical miles off the coast.<\/p>\n

In a separate incident, Romanian authorities said on Monday that two people had died<\/a> in a fire on a ship in the \u200bBlack Sea outside the \u200bcountry\u2019s territorial waters.<\/p>\n

Bulgarian \u2060Prime Minister Rumen Radev said on Tuesday that it was unclear whether the drones came from Russia or from Ukraine, the \u200bBTA news agency reported.<\/p>\n

Bulgaria does not border either country, but \u200bas a \u2060NATO member it holds a strategic position on the Black Sea, where both Ukraine and Russia have major ports.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking in a nightly video address, said an \u2060investigation \u200bjointly with Bulgaria\u2019s navy had shown that Russia was \u200bbehind the attack.<\/p>\n

Radev said on Wednesday that following the attack his government would approve the purchase of five \u200bmore surface-to-air missile systems.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bulgaria has halted its search for the missing crew of a ship that sank after being hit by a drone on Tuesday about 70 \u200bnautical miles off its coast, Vice-Admiral Rumen Nikolov of the Maritime Administration \u200cExecutive Agency told Nova TV on Wednesday. Early on Tuesday, two ships were hit in a drone attack in Bulgaria\u2019s Black Sea exclusive economic zone. One sank and the other was damaged. The crew \u200bof the damaged ship were rescued, but the crew of the sunken one \u200bremain missing. Nikolov said the rescue operation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}