A senior Russian military officer was killed in a targeted bombing in annexed Crimea, Kremlin-installed officials and the Federal Security Service (FSB) said Thursday.
The explosion occurred around 10 a.m. local time on a street in western Sevastopol, the home port of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, according to the news outlet Ostorozhno Novosti.
Citing the FSB, the outlet reported that an explosive device was placed in a trash can and detonated when the officer walked by.
The FSB confirmed the death of a Russian Defense Ministry serviceman but did not disclose his identity, according to state news agencies.
The security agency announced the arrest of a 32-year-old Russian woman who they said was acting on the instructions of Ukrainian special services.
“Investigators established that she acted on instructions from Ukrainian special services and showed no remorse,” said Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Kremlin-installed governor of Sevastopol.
Unverified reporting by Ostorozhno Novosti claimed to identify her as Margarita Reutt, who lives in the southern Russian resort city of Sochi, volunteered to clean up oil from beaches in nearby Anapa and ran her own business.
The outlet previously reported that a court in August 2025 fined Reutt for “discrediting” the Russian military over public remarks on board a train in response to news of a Ukrainian drone strike.
Telegram channels with links to Russia’s security services claimed to identify the victim as Captain First Rank Robert Shageyev, who previously commanded the Ukrainian Navy’s only submarine before defecting to Russia during the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Shageyev reportedly served as deputy commander of a Russian Black Sea Fleet submarine brigade.
The Moscow Times was unable to independently verify the details of those reports.
Razvozhayev said earlier that five people were killed overnight during an operation to dispose of an explosive device.
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