Signal No. 166 · Black Sea: HS Dignity sunk, Russian envoy summoned

Two merchant ships were struck by drones early on Tuesday in Bulgaria's economic zone, by the transport ministry's account. The Malta-flagged Chelsea 3, Ukrainian-owned and sailing from Giresun to Giurgiulești, Moldova's port on the Danube, was hit at 01:15, 17 nautical miles east of Byala, by three aerial drones on deck and hull; all 15 crew, seven Ukrainians and eight Azerbaijanis, were taken off to Varna, five of them lightly injured. The Guinea-Bissau-flagged HS Dignity, bound from Mostaganem to Brăila on the Romanian Danube, was hit at 01:20, 17 nautical miles east of Shabla, and sank. Five of its 16 crew, 14 Syrians and two Egyptians by the Syrian seafarers' union's count, were rescued by the Azov Concord and the Skandi Asserter; 11 are missing, and the search was continuing on Tuesday evening.

Three merchant ships have now sunk in the Romanian and Bulgarian economic zones in nine days. The Royad Mammadov went down off Romania on 5 October with two dead, after what Kyiv and Baku call a drone attack. On 6 October the Alfa Watan sank and the Able burned about 70 nautical miles east of Byala, and the search for the Alfa Watan's crew of about ten was called off that evening. Since 16 September the Joint War Committee's listed area has covered the whole Black Sea except the territorial waters of Bulgaria, Romania, Türkiye and Georgia. By one Odesa broker's estimate on 8 October, about 90 per cent of the transit fleet now sails inside that 12-mile band to avoid a war-risk premium that reached 0.5 per cent of hull value last week; Tuesday's two ships were five miles outside it.

Rumen Radev, the prime minister, after an extraordinary Security Council: "Absolutely unacceptable is yet another attack on merchant ships in the immediate vicinity of Bulgarian territorial waters." And: "We do not have solid and clear evidence to bring accusations against any of the parties, but logic indicates that the result is in favour of the Russian Federation."

He summoned the Russian ambassador, Eleonora Mitrofanova, and told her, by the government's account, that "there is no logic in Ukraine destroying its own ships"; she said she had no information from her defence ministry and did not exclude a provocation by a third party. Bulgaria has asked NATO and the EU for help investigating the drones' origin and for air and maritime surveillance. The defence minister, Dimitar Stoyanov, said: "Under these circumstances, we assume the drones are Russian." He is sending two more drones and air-defence assets to the coast, and spoke by phone on Tuesday with his Romanian and Turkish counterparts, and the three agreed, by his ministry's account, to expand cooperation and coordinate measures to protect shipping. The three navies have run a joint mine-countermeasures task group since July 2024, and an amendment signed at the Ankara summit in July extended its mission to the protection of undersea infrastructure.

Mark Rutte, NATO's secretary general, after a call with Radev, wrote that NATO will keep working with its Black Sea allies and "adjust its deterrence and defence posture in the Black Sea region if the situation requires it". Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission president, called the sea "another front of escalation of the Russian war in Ukraine"; Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine's foreign minister, blamed Russia. António Costa, the European Council president, said Russian hybrid activity would be discussed at the summit on Thursday and Friday. Moscow had said nothing beyond its ambassador by Tuesday evening, and Sofia has announced no Article 4 request.

Lieutenant General Christian Freuding, the inspector of the Army, gave the keynote at a parliamentary evening of the Förderkreis Deutsches Heer, the army's lobby association, earlier this month; excerpts from the leaked text were published by trade press on Tuesday. "Deep operations are part of indirect fires. Here we will, decision taken, as the Army in future also have low-cost cruise missiles. Two market-available systems are currently in focus. Both still have to be qualified for the Bundeswehr." And: "A first delivery from 2027 is therefore possible in principle, and we want to achieve that, because the operational added value, range and mass, is considerable: we will be able to engage targets at a depth of about 1,500 kilometres en masse and saturate enemy air-defence systems."

He named neither system. The report's sources name the Anthem, from the Israeli-American company Covenant, and a variant of the Ukrainian Bars; for the Bars, Germany and Ukraine signed a co-production agreement at the Ankara summit in July. In June the ministry's planning documents had named three candidates for a 2027 qualification, Anthem, Bars and Fire Point's Flamingo; the Flamingo is not among the two the sources name.

On Typhon and Tomahawk: "From the operational perspective of the land forces we therefore consider Typhon and Tomahawk correctly located with us in the Army too. Above all because the system develops its highest operational value in synchronised use with the low-cost cruise missiles. And because, in the race for speed, we are well advised to command and to strike from one hand." The ministry has before it for approval the Bundeswehr's future fine structure, its detailed organisation plan, and the Luftwaffe, whose request for up to 75 JASSM-ER cruise missiles for the F-35A was postponed in August, has also stated an interest in the Tomahawk systems, the report says.

The US long-range fires battalion that was to come to Germany from 2026 under the 2024 agreement was pulled back in May. Berlin's own Tomahawk purchase, as reported in the press, is three Typhon batteries and about 400 missiles for about EUR 3.4 billion; internal documents in September put the first missiles at 2031 against a 2029 plan, and no US export approval has been announced. Covenant opened its Leipzig plant on 5 October, with series production from the first quarter of 2027 and 1,000 missiles in the first year. The company gives the Anthem a range above 1,000 kilometres and a six-figure price; it names no German order, and the one European customer it said in September it had under contract is still unnamed. The budget committee, which must approve any procurement above EUR 25 million, has four submissions on Wednesday's agenda, none for a cruise missile.

The Irish presidency tabled its negotiating box, the draft figure for each line of the 2028–2034 multiannual financial framework, on Friday and ministers debated it at the General Affairs Council in Luxembourg on Tuesday without agreement. By Agence Europe's account the box is EUR 1,825 billion at 2025 prices against the Commission's EUR 1,985 billion, 8 per cent less; the European Competitiveness Fund falls from EUR 409 billion to EUR 362 billion, and inside it the window for resilience, security, defence industry and space from EUR 130 billion to EUR 113 billion, 13 per cent. The Commission had presented its figure for the window as a fivefold increase on the current budget period. The national and regional partnership plans are untouched. Military mobility loses EUR 2 billion of the Commission's EUR 17.6 billion, by Rapporteur's reading of the text.

Friedrich Merz, the chancellor, on Monday: "The size of the new proposal is not a basis for agreement. The EU budget must be affordable for those who bear the brunt of financing it." The Dutch finance minister, Eelco Heinen: "The Netherlands cannot accept this proposal. At this rate, there will be no deal by the end of the year." Finland's prime minister, Petteri Orpo: "Defence, research and new technologies are being hit disproportionately hard." Thomas Byrne, Ireland's minister of state for European affairs, replied that Merz "has taken note of the proposal and has not rejected it as a basis for an agreement".

In Warsaw on Tuesday, after meeting Andrius Kubilius, the defence commissioner, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, the Polish defence minister, said: "They do not see the right place for defence and security in this budget. This is unacceptable for us." Lithuania's vice-minister for foreign affairs, Sigitas Mitkus, regretted "considerable cuts" on defence, security and military mobility. Kubilius said the Commission is "looking into the next stage of the SAFE loan", the EUR 150 billion Security Action for Europe instrument; by Rapporteur's account about EUR 20 billion of it is uncommitted, most of it Hungary's EUR 16.2 billion allocation, frozen since March, and a second round of applications is being prepared for before the end of the year. Leaders take the box on Thursday.