Foreign News
India’s Seafarers Caught In Someone Else’s War
The Russian drone strike on the merchant vessel MV AGN Ragnar has reinforced a troubling reality for India: its merchant seafarers are becoming casualties of wars they have no part in.
The vessel, carrying nine crew members including four Indians, was reportedly struck while departing Ukrainian waters in the Black Sea. According to the Federation of Seafarers’ Union of India (FSUI), Indian crew members Chandra Ram Dubey and Deepak Kumar Gupta remain missing.
The attack is not an isolated incident. It reflects a broader shift in modern warfare. Merchant shipping is no longer insulated from conflict. It is increasingly part of the battlefield.
The human cost is mounting. At least 18 Indian merchant seafarers have died in recent international conflicts—13 in West Asian waters and five in the Black Sea. Three more remain missing after drone, missile and military strikes around the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman.
The Black Sea has been particularly deadly. On 18 July 2026, a missile strike on the grain carrier Golden Leo near Odesa killed four Indian crew members and critically injured another, prompting India to lodge a formal diplomatic protest. Together with the attack on MV AGN Ragnar, the incidents underline the growing risks facing Indian sailors serving aboard commercial ships.
The anger within India’s maritime community is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
“Withdraw the resolution that declared seafarers as ‘Key Workers’ if you will not protect their lives,” the FSUI said, arguing that advisories and diplomatic statements offer little comfort to sailors working in active war zones.
For India, the attacks expose a difficult reality.
Nearly 95 percent of the country’s trade by volume and around 70 percent by value moves by sea. Thousands of Indian officers, engineers and ratings serve aboard foreign-flagged vessels registered in Liberia, Panama, the Marshall Islands, Malta and elsewhere.
As a result, Indian nationals often find themselves caught in conflicts even when the ships they serve have no direct connection to India.
The Directorate General of Shipping has advised shipping companies to conduct detailed risk assessments before deploying Indian crews into conflict zones, ensure adequate war-risk insurance and obtain informed consent. The Ministry of External Affairs has also remained engaged whenever Indian nationals have been affected.
But commercial shipping leaves little room for individual choice.
“Most Indian seafarers work under international contracts. Refusing deployment through a designated high-risk area may jeopardize future employment opportunities. Shipping companies continue operating because global trade cannot simply stop every time conflict erupts,” explained a senior maritime official.
The names are becoming grimly familiar—MV Chem Pluto, MV Saibaba, MV Genco Picardy, Golden Leo and now MV AGN Ragnar—each illustrating how merchant shipping has become entangled in conflicts stretching from the Black Sea to the Gulf.
The danger extends well beyond the Black Sea.
Since late 2023, Yemen’s Houthi movement has repeatedly targeted merchant ships transiting the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, forcing many of the world’s largest shipping companies to reroute vessels around the Cape of Good Hope. Longer voyages have increased fuel costs, insurance premiums and freight rates while delaying cargo by up to two weeks.
“Every additional day at sea translates into higher freight rates, delayed deliveries and greater pressure on already fragile global supply chains,” says former Indian Navy spokesperson Capt DK Sharma (Retd.).
For India, the consequences are immediate. Exporters of pharmaceuticals, engineering goods, textiles, automobiles and petroleum products are facing higher logistics costs, while prolonged disruption threatens both export competitiveness and inflation.
Further east, tensions around the Strait of Hormuz, through which a substantial share of the world’s oil passes, have prompted the Indian Navy to escort Indian-flagged fuel carriers under Operation Sankalp.
“Broadly speaking, what you are seeing falls within the framework of Operation Sankalp. Launched in 2019 when threats to commercial shipping rose and India’s energy security was at risk, the operation aims to safeguard vital sea lanes,” , says Sharma.
“The Navy today maintains a sustained presence from the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Oman, Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz to reassure Indian merchant vessels and ensure uninterrupted energy flows,” he adds.
The operation also reflects how maritime security has changed. Anti-piracy patrols now contend with drones, anti-ship missiles and sea mines, demanding sustained naval deployments across a vast stretch of ocean.
The latest attacks have renewed calls for India to play a larger role in protecting commercial shipping. Sharma believes those expectations overlook both international law and operational reality. “Long and short answer is no. The Indian Navy has no mandate to provide security to a foreign-flagged vessel.”
Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), responsibility for a merchant ship rests primarily with its flag state.
“This distinction is important,” Sharma explains. “Even if Indian nationals constitute the majority of the crew, the Indian Navy cannot automatically escort every foreign-flagged vessel unless India’s national interests are directly involved or the government specifically mandates such protection.”
Where those interests are involved, however, India has acted. The Navy escorted MV Chem Pluto safely to Mumbai after a drone strike, prevented the hijacking of MV Lila Norfolk, and responded within eighty minutes to the distress call from MV Genco Picardy, allowing the damaged vessel to continue its voyage.
Those operations have strengthened India’s reputation as a reliable maritime security partner. But they also highlight the limits of what New Delhi can do.
Becoming a net security provider in the Indian Ocean does not make India the security guarantor for every merchant ship crossing distant conflict zones.
For the seafarers themselves, those distinctions offer little comfort.
URGENT APPEAL
Two Indian seafarers remain stranded for 12 months on vessel #PSD-1 at Port Bushehr, Iran.
In a war zone with continuous attacks nearby (within 100 metres). On 5 March, they jumped into the sea and swam to the port to save their lives — only to be forced back on… pic.twitter.com/ce2PWOXFhF— FSUI (@FSUIINDIA) July 29, 2026
“Merchant seafarers often spend months away from home, working in hazardous environments that have become considerably more dangerous over the past two years,” says Manoj Yadav, General Secretary of the FSUI.
He believes India should respond more forcefully whenever its citizens become victims of attacks at sea.
“The government should register its protest with the countries responsible whenever Indian seafarers are killed or injured aboard merchant vessels,” he says.
Wars in Ukraine and West Asia are being fought over territory, power and geopolitics. Yet some of their most vulnerable victims are civilians whose only job is to keep global trade moving.
As the world’s busiest sea lanes become conflict zones, India’s merchant seafarers are discovering that neutrality is no longer a shield.
