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Romanian authorities are still searching for seven missing sailors after rescuing five people from the San Marino-flagged tanker Wine Trader … This second tanker was struck while sitting just one mile outside Romanian territorial waters.
Reuters cited an anonymous NATO source as attributing the drone attacks to Russia.
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Nicolae Stefanuta, Romanian MEP and Co-Chair of the Group of the Greens, says that the Danube delta region is facing a more intense threat from Russia than Baltic States and that “it is clear that sooner or later we will have European casualties”.
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A NATO statement also described a Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier named Sea Destiny as also having been targeted inside Romanian waters overnight, along with a Tanzanian-flagged tanker named Dania J coming under attack in the Danube port city of Izmail in Ukraine. But there were no immediate details about damage or casualties.
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This comes just days after suspected Russian drone attacks sank a cargo ship and forced the evacuation of another vessel within two dozen miles of the coast of Bulgaria in the Black Sea on October 13. Those attacks occurred within Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone.
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One of the cargo ships that came under attack was the Ukrainian-operated coastal freighter Chelsea 3, registered under the flag of Malta. Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev told the Russian ambassador in Sofia that “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,” according to The Associated Press.
All 15 members of the Ukrainian-owned Chelsea 3 were safely evacuated by Bulgarian rescue operations after the ship was reportedly struck by three aerial drones.
But authorities were still searching for 11 missing crew members of the Guinea-Bissau-flagged cargo ship Dignity, which sank after coming under attack, The Associated Press reported. Five mariners were initially rescued from that ship.
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These incidents mark the latest in a growing series of unprecedented attacks on Black Sea shipping in the exclusive economic zones of NATO countries [and] coincide with a growing wave of incidents attributed to Russian hybrid or gray-zone warfare tactics. Such incidents include an attempted explosive drone attack on Ukrainian cargo aircraft at Leipzig Airport in Germany and a Russian drone boat loaded with explosives found floating near a Romanian offshore gas platform in the Black Sea.
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