Drone strike sinks ship in NATO waters as Zelenskyy warns of looming ‘massive strike’

A commercial ship sank and its crew vanished Tuesday after an apparent coordinated air-and-sea drone attack off NATO member Bulgaria, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blamed Russia before warning Moscow was preparing a broader “massive strike.”

A second vessel was also heavily damaged and set ablaze inside Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone, with a drone expert warning the dual precision strikes signaled a dangerous escalation and possible “larger invasion posture” by Russia.

“They were likely using the Geran-4 aerial drone to take the vessel out or the Maran surface vehicle to take it out,” Cameron Chell, founder of drone manufacturer Draganfly, told Fox News Digital on Tuesday of the first strike.

“The reason it wasn’t just an air vehicle or an air drone that took this ship out was that the Gerans generally come in at a pretty steep angle when they’re on final attack,” Chell said.

“There are not really any precision drones that fly closely above the surface, which is where they would have had to hit in order to create an impact that would sink this ship fast enough,” he added.

“The nature of this strike suggests there was a combination of an air attack and surface attack,” Chell said.

The dual attack occurred roughly 70 nautical miles off the eastern Bulgarian coastal town of Byala, according to Reuters, bringing the conflict into the economic zone of a NATO member.

Zelenskyy said Ukrainian intelligence and security services were working to determine the full circumstances surrounding the attack.