Reima Neva

🇧🇬 NEW: BULGARIA HAD F-16s MONITORING THE DRONE THREAT - BUT DID NOT INTERVENE An extraordinary admission from Bulgaria’s Chief of Defence, Admiral Emil Eftimov, following yesterday’s attack on the container ship CONTSHIP JET. According to Bulgarian officials: • A French maritime patrol aircraft detected the naval drones at least 30 minutes before the attack. • Bulgarian F-16 fighters were monitoring the situation. • Air-defence and surveillance systems had been activated. • The three naval drones approached from the east. • Bulgarian forces did not engage because the drones remained outside the country’s territorial waters. The result? The commercial vessel was struck by three naval drones and subsequently sank. Luckily all 18 crew members were rescued. Admiral Eftimov argued that Bulgaria lacked the legal authority to engage the drones outside its territorial waters. But this raises a much larger question: If NATO members can detect an incoming attack against commercial shipping, yet consider themselves unable to intervene because it occurs in their exclusive economic zone, how are they supposed to protect maritime trade? This is precisely the kind of security dilemma that the escalating Black Sea drone attacks are exposing and that NATO by now should way past by now! Responsibility for the attack remains unconfirmed.

🇧🇬 Bulgaria’s Chief of Defence, Admiral Emil Eftimov, says Bulgaria could not destroy the maritime drones that attacked the CONTSHIP JET, citing legal constraints because the attack took place in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone, outside its territorial waters, as well as severe weather conditions. But this is exactly the grey zone I have been warning about for some time. I raised the same question in the context of Romania’s Neptun Deep gas project: does NATO’s Article 5 necessarily cover attacks on critical infrastructure located in an exclusive economic zone? The answer is not straightforward. Now we are facing another example. If a threat is approaching our countries through an exclusive economic zone, are we effectively saying that we cannot act until it enters territorial waters? What does that mean for offshore energy platforms, critical infrastructure and commercial shipping? Are we going to leave these questions unanswered while hostile actors exploit every legal and operational grey area? Europe already suffers from uncertainty over NATO’s unity and the credibility of its collective defence. Europe cannot keep hiding behind vague political statements and legal ambiguities while its adversaries exploit every weakness. If NATO cannot clearly explain how it would respond to threats against critical infrastructure in an exclusive economic zone, then its credibility is already being undermined. A defence alliance that leaves fundamental questions about its own response unanswered invites adversaries to test its limits. NATO need clear commitments, clear rules of engagement and the political will to act when the security is threatened not endless uncertainty, hesitation and explanations after the damage has already been done. Deterrence means making it clear beforehand what the consequences of an attack will be. If even that remains uncertain, what exactly are we deterring?