Grain ship sinks off Romania after drone attack; two dead, Zelensky blames Russia

A Turkish-owned cargo ship carrying grain from Ukraine sank in the Black Sea on Monday, 5 October, after being hit by at least one drone and catching fire, Romanian authorities said, according to Euronews. Two crew members were killed, 11 were rescued by Romanian vessels and helicopters, and one remained missing.

The ship

The vessel, the Royad Mammadov, is owned by the Turkish company MG Shipping 5 and sails under the flag of Saint Kitts and Nevis. It had left the Ukrainian port of Izmail in the Odesa region bound for Ravenna, Italy. The attack happened outside Romania’s territorial waters but inside its exclusive economic zone, about 20 nautical miles from the coast and about 9 nautical miles from the Pescăruș offshore platform. Three injured sailors were airlifted to hospital in Constanța.

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said the captain, Azerbaijani citizen Rustam Hasanov, was killed and another Azerbaijani crew member was missing, AZERTAC reported.

Responsibility

Romanian authorities had not named a suspect. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said two Russian drones struck the civilian ship, which was carrying corn, and that “Russia consistently chooses terror” instead of normal navigation. The Kyiv Independent noted that a Russian strike on a Liberian-flagged cargo ship in the Odesa region two days earlier killed one person, and that Ukraine’s maritime corridor has been largely closed again after a series of Russian attacks over the summer.