Russian Ministry of Defense reported strikes on military vessels. But the tankers attacked in the Black Sea were bound for Moldova for sunflower oil

As The Insider reports, citing Romanian Prime Minister Luca Niculescu, the incident occurred on the evening of November 14, 2026, near Romania's Sulina shipping channel. The first to be struck at 21:10 local time was the Greek-flagged tanker EVIAPETROL V, located approximately 7.4 kilometers from the channel. Thirty-five minutes later, a drone hit the Saint Kitts and Nevis-flagged bulk carrier MARSOL 9.3 kilometers southeast of Sulina. Both vessels were in Romanian territorial waters at the time of the attack. Later, the Romanian Ministry of Defense recorded an attack on a third vessel—the tanker ALI NAJAFOV under the same flag.

As a result of the strikes, fires broke out on the decks, which the crews managed to extinguish on their own. None of the sailors were injured. Due to the emergence of aerial targets in the Danube estuary area, the Romanian Air Force scrambled fighter jets twice. Luca Niculescu described the attacks as a violation of international law and linked them to the Russo-Ukrainian war, although official Bucharest has not yet directly specified the origin of the launched drones.

Russian claims about weapons

On the morning of November 15, the Russian Ministry of Defense published a report on the continuation of strikes against Ukraine's port infrastructure and maritime vessels. Representatives of the Russian agency claimed strikes on two dry cargo ships that were allegedly transporting military and dual-use cargo to Odesa. The Ministry of Defense did not provide precise coordinates, vessel names, or video footage of the attacks.

However, an analysis of data from the vessel tracking service Starboard Maritime Intelligence paints a different picture: all three attacked merchant ships were heading not to Ukraine, but to Moldova. The tanker EVIAPETROL V departed from the Turkish port of Ambarlı on November 1 and had been waiting in the Sulina area since November 13 for passage through the channel to the Moldovan port of Giurgiulești, where it was supposed to load about 6,500 tons of sunflower oil. An hour and a half after the strike, at 22:40, the crew changed their destination to Piraeus, Greece, in the AIS system and left the area. As of the afternoon of November 15, the vessel was moving southeast along the coast of Bulgaria at a speed of 22.2 km/h. The Moldovan agro-industrial group Trans-Oil has already officially confirmed that due to the damage sustained, the tanker will not be able to complete the voyage, which will lead to export delays and breach of contracts.

The bulk carrier MARSOL, which departed from Constanța, Romania, on the morning of November 14, also had Giurgiulești listed as its declared destination, where it was scheduled to arrive two days later. Following the attack, it moved south and came to a stop. The tanker ALI NAJAFOV set out from Turkey on November 11 along the same Moldovan route, but its last geolocation data cuts off at 23:00 on the day of the attack.

Giurgiulești remains Moldova's only sea port. Located on the Danube at the junction of the borders with Romania and Ukraine, it is the country's primary transport hub for petroleum product imports and agricultural exports.

Attack statistics near NATO borders

Representatives of the Trans-Oil group note that this is already the second attack in a month on a vessel heading to them for oil. On October 15, Russian drones attacked the San Marino-flagged tanker WINE TRADER. The vessel was in Romania's exclusive economic zone, 24 kilometers from Sulina. Following the strike, 7 of the 12 crew members went missing, and in early November, human remains of six sailors were found aboard the tanker after it was towed to Varna, Bulgaria. The Russian Ministry of Defense had also issued a statement at that time claiming the destruction of military cargo for Ukraine, but the San Marino Maritime Registry officially confirmed that the tanker was sailing empty at the time of the attack.

The day before the latest events, on November 13, another drone damaged the cargo crane of the Palau-flagged bulk carrier LARISSA 1, 12.6 kilometers off the Romanian coast. In total, since the beginning of October 2026, at least 13 merchant vessels have been attacked off the coasts of Romania and Bulgaria.

In connection with the growing threats, Bucharest suggested that Black Sea countries of the North Atlantic Alliance establish a joint command for defense against drones and requested additional assistance with patrolling. In response to the situation, France has already temporarily redeployed an Atlantique 2 patrol aircraft to Romania, and NATO command has announced an overall strengthening of its maritime aviation task force in the region.

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