Recent drone strikes on commercial vessels have heightened focus on Black Sea shipping risks amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict. On October 5, the Turkish-owned grain carrier Royad Mammadov caught fire and sank in Romania’s exclusive economic zone, with Ukrainian officials attributing the attack to Russian drones and reporting two fatalities. The following day, two more merchant ships were hit by aerial and sea drones off Bulgaria’s coast—one sank with crew missing—prompting the Bulgarian prime minister to condemn the incidents as violations of maritime law. Ukrainian President Zelensky linked these to Russian efforts to render western Black Sea routes unsafe for grain exports. Separately, a Liberian-flagged tanker off Russia’s Sochi coast burned after a suspected Ukrainian drone strike. These verified incidents within the past week underscore ongoing mutual targeting of vessels, directly shaping trader assessments of additional Russian actions.