Ukraine accused Russia of a deadly drone attack on a civilian grain ship in the Black Sea on Monday, saying two Russian drones struck a Turkish-owned vessel carrying corn. President Volodymyr Zelensky called it “a horrific strike” in a post on X, noting that Azerbaijani and Indian nationals were among those on board.
The ship, the 139-metre Royad Mammadov sailing under the flag of St Kitts and Nevis, was en route from Ukraine's Izmail port to Ravenna, Italy, when it caught fire and sank roughly 30 nautical miles south of Romania's Sfantu Gheorghe port — inside Romania's exclusive economic zone, outside its territorial waters. Romania's coast guard was alerted around 11 a.m. local time.
The captain was killed and 11 crew members were rescued, one of them injured. Romania's interior ministry confirmed two deaths, while Zelensky said the fate of one person was still being established at the time of his statement. Russia's defence ministry had no immediate comment on the strike, though an earlier daily bulletin said Russian forces had hit two cargo vessels.
The attack adds to a growing toll on Black Sea shipping. Turkey's Chamber of Maritime Commerce said last month that 226 civilian and commercial vessels have been attacked in the Black Sea since the war began — the vast majority of them this year. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the UN General Assembly last month that the attacks on commercial shipping were “unacceptable.”
