An oil tanker damaged by Ukrainian drones was removed from the territorial waters of Bulgaria by a vessel from Turkey. “It's not normal,” accuses Sofia
One of the two oil tankers attacked by Ukrainian drones on November 28 Photo: AFP / AFP / Profimedia
Bulgaria denounced the towing from its territorial waters of one of the Russian oil tankers hit last week by a Ukrainian naval drone. The towing was done by a ship from Turkey, a situation that the Bulgarian authorities do not consider normal, since the drifting oil tanker had entered the territorial waters of Bulgaria, informs AFP.
Rumen Nikolov, Director General of Rescue Operations at the Bulgarian Maritime Administration, said in Varna. that the Kairos oil tanker was towed by a Turkish vessel which then returned to Turkey.
“It's not normal,” Nikolov said, adding that the reasons for this action are to be determined “diplomatically.”
Early on Saturday, the Kairos was about 700 meters from the coast, off the tourist resort of Ahtopol, on Bulgaria's southern Black Sea coast.
Difficult rescue operation of a damaged Russian oil tanker in the Black Sea. The ship was hit a week ago by a Ukrainian drone
There were still ten people on board. On Friday, they asked the Bulgarian authorities to be evacuated but the weather conditions caused the rescue operation to be postponed.
The Bulgarian Ministry of Transport stated that the ship entered Bulgarian territorial waters on Friday, but the rescue operation was suspended due to bad weather. The vessel has been identified as the Kairos, which was attacked by a Ukrainian drone in Turkey's Exclusive Economic Zone last week.
Along with the Virat, the Kairos was one of two sanctioned vessels that were attacked by Ukrainian naval drones while en route to the Russian port of Novorossisk to load oil for export. The Ministry of Transport stated that an explosion occurred on board the Kairos ship and then caught fire while it was on its way from Egypt to Russia.
After contacts with other ships in the area and with the Maritime Coordination Center in Ankara, it was confirmed that the ship had 10 people on board, who then sent an evacuation request. A specialist Border Police team was prepared to navigate to the damaged vessel and other tows were ready to intervene once the weather improved.
On Tuesday, another Russian-flagged vessel carrying sunflower oil reported an attack off the Turkish coast, but the 13 crew members were unharmed.
