Erdoğan Calls Putin After Black Sea Sinkings, and Bulgaria Takes the Drone Attacks to NATO

On Wednesday 7 October Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan telephoned Vladimir Putin, and Türkiye’s Communications Directorate said he stressed the importance of efforts to ensure navigational safety in the Black Sea. Two days earlier a Turkish-owned grain ship had sunk off Romania, Euronews reported. The day before the call, drones hit two more Turkish-linked vessels in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone, according to the Associated Press.

The Directorate’s account of the call, as Anadolu Agency reported it, names neither attack. Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev named the zone, called the strike a violation of international law and said the matter is going to NATO.

Kyiv says Russia is making the western Black Sea unfit for navigation. Radev says Sofia is taking the strike to NATO. Erdoğan, in the Directorate’s words, offered Moscow help with direct Russia-Ukraine contacts. Nobody has formally attributed the Bulgarian strike, and Russia had not answered the Ukrainian accusation when the AP reported on Tuesday.

On Monday 5 October the Turkish-owned Royad Mammadov, carrying corn from the Ukrainian port of Ismail, sank after drone strikes, Euronews reported, with two crew killed, eleven rescued by Romanian vessels and helicopters and one missing. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia “consistently chooses terror and sinking civilian vessels instead of normal maritime navigation.”

At about 3 a.m. local time on Tuesday 6 October, sea and aerial drones hit two commercial ships roughly 70 nautical miles east of the Bulgarian town of Byala, and the Togo-flagged Alfa Watan sank while the Palau-flagged Able caught fire. All 18 of the Able’s crew, 11 Turkish and seven Indian nationals, were rescued, Turkish Minute reported.

Radev said, as Al Jazeera reported: “This is an unacceptable attack in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone. It is a blatant violation of international law and maritime law.” The same day Zelensky said, in remarks carried by the Associated Press, that the tragedy was “another part of Russia’s effort to make the western Black Sea completely unfit for navigation.” Ukraine’s Navy said it had checked details with its Bulgarian counterparts and that this was “a combined Russian attack using maritime and aerial drones.” The AP reported that Russian officials offered no immediate comment and that NATO deferred to Bulgarian authorities.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, according to Euronews, called attacks on civilian shipping “unacceptable” and said the EU stood “in full solidarity with our member states on the eastern flank.”

On Wednesday the head of Bulgaria’s rescue centre, Rumen Nikolov, ended the search for the Alfa Watan’s crew and said: “There is no trace of the sailors.” Radev, quoted by Stars and Stripes, said: “These issues are being brought to NATO’s leadership, where it will be decided how and what the response should be.” Defence Minister Dimitar Stoyanov said that drone wreckage still had to be recovered and analysed. NATO’s top military commander, U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, said: “Once we have confidence in the attribution, we do need to make that public.”

Erdoğan’s call came that day, and Anadolu Agency reported that the Directorate quoted him on the importance of navigational safety and on Türkiye being “always ready to contribute to efforts aimed at launching direct contacts between Russia and Ukraine.” TASS carried the same Turkish version, and Anadolu added that he congratulated Putin on his birthday and on his party’s result in the State Duma elections. No Russian readout of the call had surfaced when this article was written.

After a drone struck the tanker Virat about 35 miles off Türkiye’s coast in late November 2025, Erdoğan said: “We cannot justify these attacks in any way. We are conveying the necessary warnings to all relevant sides.” Anadolu’s summary of the Directorate’s account of the 7 October call has no warning and no incident in it, only a birthday greeting.

Radev, according to Euronews, said that without an end to the war in Ukraine its geographic reach would keep expanding and the risk of a wider conflict would grow. He also named the cost to shipping, quoted by Al Jazeera as insurance premiums driven up “even further.”

Zelensky and the Ukrainian Navy named Russia the same day, as the AP reported, while Stoyanov was still waiting for wreckage on Wednesday. A retired Turkish rear admiral, Yankı Bağcıoğlu, asked in Turkish Minute: “Where is our ships’ freedom of navigation?”

The Turkish account records an offer of a channel between Russia and Ukraine. It records no request to Putin to stop anything and does not repeat the accusation Zelensky made a day earlier.

Bulgaria’s Security Council was due to meet on 7 October on maritime threats, AP reported. The first marker is whether Sofia or NATO publishes an attribution once the wreckage is analysed, which Grynkewich said must be made public once NATO is confident of it. If it names Russia, Ankara’s account of the call will be read against it.

The second marker is Moscow, which had not answered the Ukrainian accusation, and whose own account of the Erdoğan call has not appeared. The third is insurance: Radev named rising premiums as the immediate cost, and the next war risk quotes for Black Sea voyages will show the market’s reading.