Senior Russian naval commander killed in Crimea car bombing: reports

A Russian Black Sea Fleet commander has reportedly been killed in a car bomb explosion in Crimea.

Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-appointed governor of the occupied peninsula, said that a military officer was in a car that exploded on the street in the city of Sevastopol on Wednesday morning.

The victim was identified as Valery Trankovsky, a captain of the 1st rank in the fleet, according to the Telegram channel Baza, which is said to have connections to the Russian intelligence services.

The killing was carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), an unnamed source told the agency Kiev independent. Trankowski was described by the source as a “war criminal who ordered the launch of cruise missiles from the Black Sea against civilian sites in Ukraine.”

Newsweek has asked the defense ministries of Russia and Ukraine for comment.

Russian rescue workers arrived at the scene at around 10 a.m. local time, six minutes after the explosion, but the victim died from his injuries shortly afterwards.

Russian media outlet Mash said Trankowski had been under surveillance for about a week and that an improvised explosive device had been planted under the driver's car and detonated remotely.

Images posted on social media showed what appeared to be the aftermath of the explosion: passers-by gathered around a destroyed vehicle.

Razvozhayev said a criminal case had been opened over a suspected terrorist attack and the circumstances of the incident were being “clarified.”

According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Trankovsky was chief of staff of a missile boat brigade that took part in the all-out invasion of Ukraine.

Wednesday's incident follows the deaths of several other Russian officers in the occupied territories of Ukraine during the war.

In October, a senior Russian pilot involved in a fatal attack on a Ukrainian shopping center was found dead with hammer wounds to the head, according to Ukrainian military intelligence. The pilot named Dmitry Golenkov is said to have been involved in the rocket attack on civilians in the Amstor shopping center in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk on June 27, 2022.

Russian military bloggers and independent media reported that Major General Pavel Klimenko, who commanded the Fifth Separate Motor Rifle Brigade in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, was killed last week.

Initial reports said he was killed in a drone strike while riding a motorcycle near Krasnohorivka in the Donetsk region.

However, the Telegram channel VChK-OGPU, which claims to have ties to Russian intelligence, said it was a cover-up and that he was in a state of “severe alcohol intoxication” before his death.

Update 11/13/24, 6:30 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.