The minesweeper group of the Navies of Bulgaria and Romania has started working in the Black Sea
19 October, 2023 Tsibar (32) minelayer of the Bulgarian Navy. Photo from open sources The minesweeping group of the Bulgarian and Romanian navies started trawling the Black Sea off the coast of Bulgaria along the route of the new Ukrainian sea corridor.
Andrii Klymenko, editor-in-chief of the BlackSeaNews portal, reported this on his Facebook page. Previously, Militarnyi reported on the plans of Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania to create a joint force to dispose of sea mines in the Black Sea. At the time, it was noted that one of the goals of the mission was to demonstrate that the three countries were capable of solving this problem on their own.
Smeli torpedo boat (11) of the Bulgarian Navy.
Photo from open sources
Seven vessels are observed at sea, of which six belong to Bulgaria and one to Romania. It is reported that the joint group is not limited to the territorial waters of Bulgaria but operates in the adjacent area where the routes of bulk carriers of the new Ukrainian grain corridor run. The Monitoring Group of the International Centre for Black Sea Studies together with BlackSeaNews identified five out of seven ships of the minesweeping group off the coast of Bulgaria:
- Minehunter (32) Tsibar - Bulgarian Navy,
- Frigate (41) Drazki - Bulgarian Navy,
- Torpedo boat (11) Smeli - Bulgarian Navy,
- Frigate (42) Verni - Bulgarian Navy,
- Maritime minesweeper (30) Slt.
Alexandru Axente - Romanian Navy.
Previously, incidents of civilian vessels being blown up by sea mines have repeatedly occurred in the Black Sea. Militarnyi recently reported that a Turkish-flagged cargo ship hit a mine in the Black Sea off the coast of Romania.
The frigate Verni of the Bulgarian Navy. Photo from open sources
The incident occurred on October 5, 2023, at 12:20 pm Kyiv time near the mouth of the Danube, 11 nautical miles north of the town of Sulina, near the entrance to the Sulina Canal.
A Ukrainian government source confirmed a vessel had struck a mine, adding it was "probably a World War II mine or the landing mines that were left there last year".
Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Romanian, Bulgarian, and Turkish navies have occasionally cleared sea mines drifting in their waters that pose a threat to navigation.