Seven missing after drones set chemical tankers ablaze in Romanian Black Sea waters

Romania says seven people are missing after a fire broke out on a chemical tanker in the Black Sea. The vessel reported the fire on Thursday morning close to the Romanian coast. Authorities say from the 12 people on board, five are safe. It's one of two chemical tankers that caught fire in Romanian waters overnight and there have been a series of drone attacks hitting vessels off Romania and Bulgaria since last week. Now let's go to our reporter Rosie Birchard live for us from Brussels. So Rosie what is exactly what is it exactly we think was the cause of this because we said that this isn't the first time. It's not the first time and what leaders are saying here we know the Bulgarian and the Romanian prime ministers are in the room raising this. They see this as a spillover of the war in Ukraine which is very much next door for them. So they share this Black Sea coast with other countries in the region, including Turkey, but also Russia and Ukraine. And the Black Sea was traditionally a very crucial shipping route, both for Russia and for Ukraine. So it's been a key battleground. And what the Bulgarians and the Romanians seem to be saying is that they see this as part of a spillover of that conflict. That being said, they've been very careful on any sort of exact attribution as to what happened here. But we have seen this series of drone incidents, including several lives lost. That's off the coast of Romania and Bulgaria. And we are expecting EU leaders to release a statement later today in which they call any attacks on commercial shipping, such as the ones they've seen, they say, in the Black Sea, a violation of international law. And they will also call for restoration of safe shipping routes. And they'll frame that within that bigger question of food security, because, of course, as I mentioned, those were shipping routes, especially for grain. Ukraine and Russia both were seen as absolutely key exporters of grain, especially grain heading to the African continent, heading to Asian nations. And that's why the European Union has also been trying to reinforce what it calls, it brands, solidarity lanes. Those are alternative grain export routes for Ukraine over EU land. So through train, rail and river routes to allow Ukraine to continue exporting at least some of its grain and accessing that revenue. Now, I asked Bulgaria's prime minister on his way into these talks, Bulgaria, another one of those countries that has been caught up in these drone incidents in the Black Sea, what he made of all of this. And as I said, pretty careful in his attribution of exactly where he's pointing the finger. however take a listen to more of what he said to get an idea of just where his thinking lies we have our assumptions we have certain assumptions and i expressed our assumptions in front of the russian ambassador i i summoned the russian ambassador in bulgaria because we don't believe that ukraine will attack its own ships and crews it is there is no logic here So the results of this attack favour Russia. However, we don't have any solid evidence that the drones are Russians. We have tried to do our best to investigate one of the survived ships. We sent their special crews. They searched the ship, but they found nothing. All right, and clearly there's this European Union summit that's happening. What is being discussed? What's top of the agenda? And I'm sure that energy prices will be one of them. You bet energy prices right high up on the agenda here because, of course, governments across the EU face citizens who are asking them for answers. They've seen a huge record increase in diesel prices, but also gas prices expected to rise even further. We're coming up to the colder months here in Europe and the heating season beginning. Now, what European leaders are going to stress is they say this is not a supply crisis. They have access to energy, but they see this as a price crisis. And really interesting what we see, this difference of opinion or difference of pointing the finger between the European Union and the U.S. when it comes to this so-called diesel price crisis, because the Europeans are really pointing the finger at the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, looking at shipping disruptions in the Middle East. And the US, on the other hand, has been really pointing the finger at Ukraine, hasn't it? Donald Trump accusing Ukraine of causing disruption because of its strikes on refineries, which, of course, Ukraine says it's now continuing. Now, the Europeans, whenever there are those tensions between the US and Ukraine that we heard Audrey talking about earlier, their support starts to seem even more crucial. And that's why we're about to see Vladimir Zelensky tomorrow appear here at this summit. But he will be asking European leaders for more support as Ukraine's winter approaches. And EU leaders will be kind of digging into their own stocks to see if they can cough up anything more in terms of military aid and support. And, of course, Ukraine says it needs everything it can get now. It says it's approaching a very difficult period. Yeah, absolutely. Very difficult for many in Europe right now. Thank you very much, Rosie Birch, live for us in Brussels.