NATO convened an urgent session on Black Sea security following a series of lethal incidents targeting cargo vessels in waters bordering alliance members Bulgaria and Romania. Any move to send NATO ships into the Black Sea depends on Turkey choosing to lift the treaty-based restrictions that currently prevent warships from entering the strait.
Two chemical tankers navigating waters off the Romanian coast were struck by drone attacks on Thursday. Two comparable incidents had already occurred in Bulgarian waters during the preceding seven days. More than 20 crew members have died or are unaccounted for.
A maritime analyst at Istanbul's Bosphorus Observer consultancy noted that drone technology has altered naval traffic patterns since the conflict began, with strikes now extending beyond Russian and Ukrainian ports to vessels operating in Bulgarian and Romanian waters within NATO's maritime boundaries. Attacks fell on ships travelling a Ukrainian maritime route that investigators have described as a key artery for seaborne commerce. NATO has attributed responsibility to Russia as part of what officials characterise as a continuing effort to disrupt Ukraine's access to commercial waterways.
Talks held on Thursday between NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and the heads of government of Bulgaria and Romania produced a commitment to sustaining close coordination with partners along the Black Sea, with the organisation's deterrence and defence arrangements to be adapted in line with evolving circumstances. A gathering of NATO members is set for next week, Dan announced, with the unfolding situation on the agenda for discussion.
Plans are under discussion within NATO to position air-defence assets along the Black Sea coastlines of Bulgaria and Romania, with the aim of intercepting unmanned aerial vehicles operating in those waters.
Under the 1936 Montreux Convention, transit rights through the Turkish Straits rest with Turkey, so any allied naval vessels seeking to reach the Black Sea would first require that NATO member's authorisation to proceed. Following Russia's military offensive into Ukraine in February 2022, Ankara has kept the Bosphorus and Dardanelles closed to warships from both belligerents as well as to naval vessels belonging to NATO states without Black Sea coastlines, citing the need for a negotiated resolution to the conflict.
Turkey's bid to broker a halt to attacks on cargo ships yielded no agreement during the weeks that followed. Isik framed both the recent intensification of hostilities and that outcome as elements compounding the strain on Ankara's diplomacy-only posture, noting that resolution appears to hinge on one of two developments: either the Kremlin steps back following a substantive breakthrough in negotiations, or Turkish authorities move toward accepting that a more robust physical footprint — encompassing larger vessels — would need to be put in place.
The ageing composition of Romanian and Bulgarian naval forces — most vessels dating to the Cold War period and approaching the end of their operational lives — means neither country can mount such an operation on its own, a shortfall that positions Turkish naval involvement as a practical requirement within any viable NATO arrangement for the Black Sea. Notwithstanding attacks on Turkish-flagged cargo vessels in recent weeks and the country's notable reliance on Black Sea trade routes, those naval forces have remained on the sidelines.
Huseyin Bagci, an international relations scholar at Ankara's Middle East Technical University, expressed the view that Turkey is apprehensive about a broader spread of the conflict and would be reluctant to grant NATO vessels passage into the Black Sea, adding that the administration would likely treat such a move as an attempt to draw the country into the fighting. One analyst described Turkey's posture in the Black Sea as shaped by a deep-seated historical reluctance to confront Russia militarily.
Separately, Rosatom — the state-owned nuclear energy corporation — is nearing completion of a multi-billion-dollar power plant at Akkuyu in southern Turkey. Bagci argued that permitting Russian contractors to finish the nuclear facility while simultaneously taking an opposing stance toward Moscow was a contradictory position, adding that the project holds strategic value for the country's efforts to reduce its reliance on imported energy.
Turkish officials are also mindful that granting NATO ships passage while keeping Russian vessels out could give Moscow grounds to challenge Ankara's long-held authority over access to the Black Sea. Retired Turkish diplomat Selim Kuneralp, whose work has centred on the Montreux Convention, has noted that Ankara's control over Black Sea vessel movement is almost certainly a factor in Moscow's strategic thinking, and that the warship passage restrictions imposed under the treaty have likely constrained Russia's ability to sustain its military campaign.
Kuneralp further indicated that a Russian victory could prompt its leadership to declare the existing arrangement no longer tenable and press for unrestricted warship access regardless of whether active hostilities are ongoing — a demand it would be entitled to raise formally given that signatories to the convention hold the right to seek a review of its terms at five-year intervals.
Over many centuries, territorial disputes over the Turkish Straits drew Russia and the Ottoman Empire into a succession of armed conflicts. During the opening decades of the Cold War, Joseph Stalin made his own attempt at the same objective, only to be blocked by American countermeasures. Turkey's foreign policy has been pulled in competing directions, with its obligations to NATO on one side and its relationship with Russia on the other, leaving it to manage the tension between the two without reviving older geopolitical fault lines.
