🇷🇺⚔️🇺🇦 In the first 14 days of October, 5 ships were attacked by unknown UAVs with two sunk in the Black Sea.

Clues point to Russia being the culprit in at least 2 of the cases:

🔶 The Turkish owned General Cargo Ship — ROYAD MAMMADOV — flying under the flag of St. Kitts and Nevis, was struck and disabled on October 5th inside Romania's EEZ, departed Izmail, Odessa Oblast carrying grains bound for Ravenna, Italy. 2 out of the 11 crew members were killed. The ship became partially submerged but did not fully sink.

🔶 The Ukrainian owned General Cargo Ship — CHELSEA 3 — flying under the flag of Malta, was struck and disabled on October 13th inside Bulgaria's EEZ. It departed from Girsun, Turkey and was bound for Giurgiulești, Moldova.

The three other ships that were hit are:

🔶 The General Cargo Ship — ABLE — flying under the flag of Palau, was struck and disabled on October 6th inside Bulgaria's EEZ. It departed Galați, Romania and was headed for Istanbul, Turkey. Although it wasn't mentioned what cargo it was carrying, the ship was likely carrying grains or other agricultural products from Ukraine who has been evading Russia's naval blockade using Romanian and Bulgarian ports.

🔶 The General Cargo Ship — ALFA WATAN — flying under the flag of Togo, was struck and sunk on October 6th inside Bulgaria's EEZ. It departed Turkey and was headed for Sulina, Romania from where it would have sailed through the Sulina canal to one of the Romanian ports on the Danube, Galați or Brăila.

🔶 The General Cargo Ship — HS DIGNITY — flying under the flag of Guinea-Bissau, was struck and sunk on October 13th inside Bulgaria's EEZ. It departed Algeria and was bound for Brăila, Romania. The crewmembers have not been rescued and are listed as missing.

Based off the departure and destination ports, clues point to Russia as the likely culprit for all 5 of these incidents even if only one of the vessels had Ukrainian managers and another one departed from a Ukrainian port.

Romania and Bulgaria's EEZ is not covered by NATO's article 5 as the EEZ or Exclusive Economic Zone is not considered "sovereign territory". Territorial waters comprise the area between the coast up to 12 nautical miles after which the EEZ begins and extends up to 200 nautical miles from the coast.

@CIG_telegram