Romania says two dead after fire on ship, Ukraine blames Russian drones

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

Oct 5 — Two people died and others were rescued after a fire on a ship in the Black Sea outside Romania's territorial waters, Romanian authorities said on Monday, as Ukraine blamed Russian drones for the incident.

Romania's interior ministry said ‌11 crew members of the ship which sank had been rescued. The country's Naval Authority said the ⁠incident involved a fire on the ship Royad Mammadov.

Romania did not comment ⁠on the cause of the fire but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said ‌it had been caused ‌by Russian drones. He confirmed the death of one person in ⁠the incident but said a second person ⁠had yet to be accounted for.

"A horrific strike by two Russian drones on a civilian vessel in neutral waters carrying corn and owned by Türkiye. Azerbaijani and Indian citizens were on board," Zelenskiy wrote on social media platform X.

"As of now, unfortunately, we know that the ship's captain was ‌killed. My condolences. The fate of one other person is still being established. Eleven crew members were rescued, one of them injured."

Russian authorities had no immediate comment. An earlier daily bulletin from the Russian Defence Ministry said Russia had struck two cargo vessels.

Romanian media earlier reported that the incident had occurred near an oil platform operated by Romanian energy company OMV Petrom , which told Romanian website HotNews.ro that the platform was operating normally.

The ship, flying under the flag of St Kitts & Nevis, had been ‌headed to Ravenna, ‌Italy, and ⁠had last docked at the Ukrainian port of Izmail, according to website VesselFinder.com.

NATO member Romania shares a 614-km (382-mile) land border with Ukraine. Since the Ukraine-Russia war started four years ago, it has seen Russian drones breaching its airspace as well ‌as mines floating in the Black Sea across key trade and energy ‌routes.

(Reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, ⁠Pawel Florkiewicz and Jason Hovet; Additional reporting by Yuliia Dysa in Kyiv; Editing by Jan Harvey and Gareth Jones)