Tyrant’s new tactic to push alliance to brink with drone blitz on Black Sea ships
By Jeylin Mehmet
Newsbreak
Oct 7, 2026
VLADIMIR Putin is testing Nato’s red lines with a calculated campaign designed to push the alliance towards a breaking point, an expert has warned.
It comes after drones blasted two merchant ships off Bulgaria just a day after another vessel sank near Romania in a suspected Russia attack.
Two crew members were severely injured as one ship sank within minutes and another erupted in flames.
Several sailors remain missing in the Black Sea.
Crucially, the drones struck inside Nato member Bulgaria’s Exclusive Economic Zone – bringing the attack alarmingly close to the alliance’s doorstep.
It is not yet clear who launched the drones.
Now, experts are warning Russia has been deliberately testing Nato in a bid to see how far it can go before the alliance hits back.
British military veteran and intelligence expert Justin Crump told The Sun: “This is carefully calibrated by Russia. It’s a creeping progression of the sorts of actions they do to test the alliance.
“They’re steadily testing Nato and Nato member countries’ boundaries.
“They’re constantly treading that line. And as they become more bold, of course, the risk gradually increases.”
“What Russia is trying to do is work out where those thresholds really are,” he added.
“How can they increase public pressure over the war in Ukraine in Russia’s favour without triggering a clear Article 4 or Article 5 response?”
Article 4 allows Nato members to demand consultations when they believe their security is threatened.
Article 5 is the alliance’s collective defence principle under which an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against them all.
The expert warned that the Kremlin was effectively trying to operate in the dangerous space beneath those thresholds.
The danger, he warned, is that Russia eventually pushes too far.
Justin said: “The risk is that they miscalculate and they do something potentially in the Baltics that is strong enough that it really does invite a reaction, demand a reaction from nations that Russia may not have expected.”
The stark warning came after the Alfa Watan was struck around 80 miles off the Bulgarian coast and immediately sank.
A second vessel, the Able, was seriously damaged after another strike sparked a huge fire on board, forcing all 18 crew members to abandon ship.
Rescue teams managed to pull them from the water, with several injured sailors treated aboard the Bulgarian ferry Dioscuria.
Two crew members suffered severe injuries, including burns, and were flown to hospital.
Eleven of those rescued are Turkish and seven are Indian, according to Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev.
Distress signals were sent out at around 4am local time – and by 9am one vessel had disappeared from Border Police radar.
Rescuers raced towards the sunken ship but found only life jackets floating in the water, with none of its missing crew recovered so far.
Radev condemned the strikes as a “flagrant attack on maritime law”.
He said: “Such an attack within Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone is absolutely unacceptable. Two merchant vessels were attacked by sea and air drones.”
Bulgaria called an emergency meeting of defence ministers and officials following the strikes.
The Alfa Watan had been carrying wheat to the Romanian port of Sulina, according to ship-tracking website VesselFinder and official statements.
The Able was flying under the flag of Palau, although it remains unclear where it was heading or what cargo it was carrying.
Rumen Nikolov, director of the Maritime Rescue Coordination Center, told Bulgarian public radio: “The crew of one ship is missing, while the sailors from the second vessel have been rescued.”
The strikes are the first attacks on vessels recorded inside Bulgaria’s Exclusive Economic Zone.
Justin said Romania and Bulgaria could be particularly attractive targets for Russian pressure because of their geography and Moscow’s historic understanding of the region.
He said: “There is an argument that Romania and Bulgaria are much more laissez-faire towards Russia.
“They’re not particularly in favour of Ukraine necessarily. They’re easier targets for Russia.”
He added: “It’s not surprising to see these things on that southern flank.”
Justin said the pressure was part of a much wider Russian playbook stretching beyond conventional military force.
“All of it is effectively hybrid warfare,” he said.
“Some of it more diplomatic, some of it more economic, some of it more military.”
The Black Sea strikes expose a major headache for Nato – detecting and destroying cheap drones before they can reach hugely valuable civilian ships.
Justin said European defences had not been designed for the explosion in cheap, slow-moving weapons now transforming warfare.
He added: “We have been a bit negligent about our tracking of threats in our airspace. Slow drones are therefore often excluded from what a radar would automatically see.”
“We haven’t really got a very joined up air defence system over Europe because we didn’t need it.”
And this leaves merchant vessels particularly exposed when drones skim towards them at low altitude, he warned.
“No one’s quite found the right formula yet fully to defend against smaller drones,” Justin said.
“They’re coming in slow, they’re coming in low, they’re attacking vessels that haven’t got the sensor systems to deal with it.”
Arming civilian vessels presents its own problems, leaving commercial shipping caught in a dangerous gap between civilian and military protection.
Justin warned: “Until merchant ships can become armed vessels you are always going to have a gap in how they can defend themselves.
“And, as in many other conflicts, they therefore make easy targets.”
The hits on the ships off the coast of Bulgaria came a day after a Turkish-owned cargo ship was struck near Romania, killing two people.
The vessel had been carrying grain from Ukraine to Italy when it was hit in a drone attack.
Romanian officials did not confirm who was responsible, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed the Kremlin.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, drones have repeatedly breached the airspace of European countries, while the Black Sea has become an increasingly dangerous arena for commercial shipping.
Justin fears the possibility that repeated provocations could slowly become accepted as normal.
“They’ve got away with a lot of operations over a long period of time in our nations without eliciting significant reactions,” he said.
Now, Nato faces an increasingly perilous balancing act as Moscow searches for the point at which the alliance will finally refuse to back down, Justin said.
“The more you shove, the more chance there is that something you think Nato will let go or nations will let go becomes the issue that we just don’t let go,” he said.
“They’re doing it for a reason, they’ll keep doing it without doubt. They’ll keep pushing what they’re doing and their hope is eventually they’ve created a new normal where we accept what they’re doing.”
Every new test carries the risk that one strike, incursion or miscalculation finally crosses the line Moscow has spent years trying to locate.
Justin warned: “We are going into a pretty dangerous period and not really very prepared for it.”