Black Sea drone strike sinks ship, NATO on edge

The day's sharpest escalation came from the Black Sea. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia struck two civilian ships in Bulgaria's waters with a combined naval and aerial drone attack, sinking one vessel, and urged NATO to respond. Bulgaria's president convened the national security council after the strike, which left crew missing; Defense Minister Stoyanov called it deliberate but said whether the drones were Russian or Ukrainian remains unconfirmed. Tension spread west too: the US evacuated aircraft from a British airbase over intelligence warning of a possible Iranian drone strike there. On the front line, Ukraine's General Staff recorded 172 engagements on October 6, 23 on the Pokrovsk axis, as Russia fired 62 air strikes, 190 guided bombs, nearly 5,900 kamikaze drones and over 1,500 artillery barrages. A strike on a Zaporizhzhia warehouse killed a 47-year-old man and wounded others, and a separate hit on a Dnipro bridge injured five. Zelensky posthumously named MiG-29 pilot Mambetov a Hero of Ukraine for dying in defense of Ukrainian skies. Elsewhere, Moldova will name a new power line to Romania after Donald Trump, thanking the US for backing its energy independence, while consulting civil society on EU enlargement plans. Latvia expelled a pro-Russian journalist over disinformation, and the European Parliament approved 115 million euros for defense innovation.