Bulgaria Asks NATO for Air Defense After Ship Attack

Bulgaria has asked NATO for aircraft, air defense systems, counter-drone equipment and air patrols, Defense Minister Dimitar Stoyanov said on Oct. 16, as drone strikes on merchant ships creep toward the country’s Black Sea coast.

Stoyanov told reporters that Sofia requested “the entire spectrum of available assets” to show a strong allied presence in the region, according to Bulgarian outlet Novinite.

He said it is still unclear what help Bulgaria will actually receive.

Stoyanov said Romania and the Baltic states have similar needs, and that defense ministers from Turkey and Romania, along with the chiefs of the general staff of all three countries, are expected to meet soon. He also cautioned that absolute security in the Black Sea cannot be guaranteed, even with allied forces deployed.

Earlier this week, Stoyanov said Bulgaria would deploy two additional drone systems and more missile systems to the Black Sea area, Newsweek reported, citing Bulgarian news agency BTA.

The request follows a turbulent fortnight off Bulgaria’s coast. On Oct. 6, drones hit two commercial ships, the Alfa Watan and the Able, in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone. The Alfa Watan sank, and its crew went missing, while the Able’s 18 crew members were rescued. It was the first such attack in the economic zone of a NATO member.

A week later, on Oct. 13, the Ukrainian-owned, Malta-flagged cargo ship Chelsea 3 was hit by three drones roughly 18 nautical miles off the coast near Byala. Its crew survived. Prime Minister Rumen Radev said a second vessel was struck and sunk about 17 nautical miles off the village of Krapets, and Reuters said 11 sailors were missing.

Other Topics of Interest

Moscow Airports Suspend Flights Again Amid Drone Alerts

Russian officials said air defenses intercepted drones headed for Moscow; more than 20 inbound aircraft were diverted.

Radev said Bulgaria lacks solid evidence to accuse any specific party but suggested that Russia benefits from the attacks. He summoned Russian Ambassador Eleonora Mitrofanova, who said she had no information on Russian involvement and did not rule out a third-party provocation, according to ARY News. Ukraine claims that Russia is responsible.

The Oct. 6 attack came a day after a drone strike sank the Turkish-owned grain ship Royad Mammadov off Romania, killing two crew members. The Romanian Naval Authority said the incident occurred in Romania’s exclusive economic zone, outside its territorial waters.

President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed Russian drones, though Romanian authorities have not officially confirmed a drone strike.

Bulgaria’s shift

Calls for NATO help are coming from a government that has distanced itself from Kyiv.

Radev, a former president and long-time critic of military aid to Ukraine, won the April 19 parliamentary election in a landslide. On June 9, Stoyanov said Bulgaria would send no more weapons to Ukraine, adding Bulgaria had approved 13 military aid packages since 2022.

On July 14, Radev said Bulgaria would no longer take part in the Coalition of the Willing that seeks to provide postwar security guarantees to Ukraine; he has halted government-supplied military aid since taking office but has not stopped commercial arms sales to Kyiv.

Speaking at the NATO summit in Ankara earlier that month, Radev said Bulgaria had exhausted what it could give from state stockpiles but could still repair Ukrainian military equipment.

Sofia also reportedly vetoed EU sanctions on Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and a confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and sought the removal of oil billionaire Vagit Alekperov from the lists. Radev argued that religion should stay separate from sanctions policy.

Producer of Soviet-standard ammunitions

Bulgaria is not a military heavyweight, but it matters to Ukraine for what it can produce.

Because of its communist-era industrial base, it is one of the few countries outside Russia that can produce Soviet-standard munitions, and output surged after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Emilian Gebrev, owner of arms maker Emco and a survivor of two nerve-agent poisonings, said that Russian military intelligence agents repeatedly sabotaged his facilities. Bulgarian prosecutors have charged six officers serving in Russia’s Main Directorate of the General Staff (GRU) in connection with the incidents.

Geography matters too.

Bulgaria borders neither Ukraine nor Russia, but it holds a strategic position on the Black Sea. With Russia bombing Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, Kyiv increasingly relies on Danube River ports and shipping routes close to the coasts of Bulgaria and Romania.

Romania’s foreign ministry says, per Maritime Executive, that between 20% and 30% of globally traded wheat and grain transits the corridor. That makes the waters off Bulgaria both a lifeline for Ukraine’s exports and a growing test of whether NATO can protect shipping in its own backyard.