A cargo ship carrying grain sank in the Black Sea, and two people lost their lives. Romanian authorities said 11 crew members were rescued. Romanian media reported that the ship was hit by a drone, after which fire broke out. The first official statements from Bucharest confirm a fire, a sinking and casualties, but do not say what caused it.

The ship, the Royad Mammadov, was sailing under the flag of Saint Kitts and Nevis. On 18 September it docked in the Ukrainian port of Izmail, then set off for Ravenna in Italy. The incident happened around 20 nautical miles, or roughly 37 kilometres, off the Romanian coast, inside Romania's exclusive economic zone but outside its territorial waters.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the civilian ship carrying corn had been targeted by Russian drones in neutral waters. As of the latest reports, Moscow had said nothing about the specific incident. Two dead sailors, and officially still nobody has said who sent the drone. Or at least nobody wants to say it out loud.

The Maritime Coordination Centre in Constanța received the report of a serious incident at around 11 a.m. Three rescue vessels, Romanian Coast Guard units and a helicopter from Romania's General Aviation Inspectorate were sent out. At one point 13 crew members were listed as missing; in the end rescuers pulled out 11. Three injured sailors were winched up by the helicopter and handed over to emergency medical services, while the other eight crew members, in stable condition, were brought in by the rescue vessels.

The ship sank around nine nautical miles south-east of OMV Petrom's Pescăruș platform, which quickly raised fears for energy infrastructure in the Black Sea. The company said the incident happened far from the platform and that neither staff nor operations were at risk. "The platform is operating normally," OMV Petrom said.

The context is uncomfortably clear. On 5 October the Russian Defence Ministry said Russian forces had targeted two Ukrainian cargo ships, claiming they were carrying military equipment and supplies. Ukraine, for its part, accuses Moscow of attacking civilian and port infrastructure. Sailing between those two versions are commercial grain ships and their crews.

The Black Sea is closer than it looks on the map - Bulgaria, Macedonia's neighbour, sits on its shore. When a grain ship goes down 37 kilometres off the coast of a NATO and EU member, and the first official statements don't mention the word "drone", the question isn't only who sent it. The question is how many more incidents like this will pass as something normal.