A senior Russian naval officer was killed in a car bomb explosion in occupied Crimea’s city of Sevastopol on Wednesday.
A Ukrainian Hit
A Kyiv security source described the explosion as a Ukrainian hit on a senior naval official accused of war crimes.
Crime Being Categorised As Terrorism
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which handles probes into serious crimes, said in a statement that it was treating the crime as terrorism.
The committee said that an improvised explosive device had detonated, killing a serviceman whom it did not identify.
Who Was Valery Trankovsky?
A source in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) told Reuters that the explosion had killed Valery Trankovsky, a Russian naval captain.
Trankovsky was in charge of the headquarters of the 41st brigade of Russia’s Black Sea missile ships.
Operation Carried Out By SBU
The operation was carried out by the SBU, the source said, describing the hit as legitimate and in line with the customs of war.
The source accused Trankovsky of war crimes for ordering missile strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine.
Russia has used warships from its Black Sea Fleet, and strategic bombers, to conduct missile strikes on targets across Ukraine, leading to hundreds of civilian casualties.
Russia says it does not target civilians or civilian infrastructure.
Who Identified Valery?
Baza, a Telegram channel close to Russia’s security services, identified the serviceman as “Valery T.”, describing him as a “captain first rank” for the Black Sea Fleet.
It said he was the former chief of staff of the missile ship brigade.
Some media reports quoted Russian Telegram channel MASH as saying that the officer was followed for about a week.
Scene Of The Explosion
Both Baza and the Kyiv source said the bomb had detonated on Taras Shevchenko street, which is named after Ukraine’s most famous poet.
Baza published images of the wreckage of a car.
Many Assassinations
Several pro-war Russian figures have been assassinated since the start of the war in operations blamed by Moscow on Ukraine.
Those killed include journalist Darya Dugina, war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky and former submarine commander Stanislav Rzhitsky.
Unofficial Ukrainian Database
All of those people including Trankovsky, were listed in Myrotvorets (Peacemaker), a huge unofficial Ukrainian database of people considered to be enemies of the country.
On Wednesday Trankovsky’s photo on the site was overwritten with the word “Liquidated” in red letters.
Network Of Ukrainian Agents In Crimea
Russia’s Federal Security Service, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said last December that it had cracked a network of Ukrainian agents in Crimea.
The Security Service said that these agents were involved in attempts to assassinate pro-Russian figures.
Who Are The Targets?
It said the targets included the Moscow-installed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, and a former pro-Russian member of the Ukrainian parliament, Oleg Tsaryov.
Tsaryov survived despite being shot twice in an attack in October in Crimea, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014.
