Top Russian Naval Commander Accused of War Crimes Assassinated in Ukraine-Planted Car Bombing

A top Russian naval commander accused of war crimes has been killed in a car bombing.

RadarOnline.com can reveal Valery Trankovsky, who headed the 41st brigade of Russia's Black Sea missile ships, was wiped out in the targeted attack in the city of Sevastopol, a Ukrainian security source told Reuters.

The hit — carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine — was justified after Trankovsky ordered missile strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine, according to the sources.

Russia's Investigative Committee, which handles probes into serious crimes, called the assassination an act of terrorism but stopped short of identifying the serviceman.

Baza, a Telegram channel close to Russia’s security services, only identified him as "Valery T" — describing him as a "captain first rank" for the Black Sea Fleet and a former chief of staff of the missile ship brigade.

Footage and images shared on the Telegram channel showed smoke billowing from the charred wreckage in the wake of the explosion.

Russian media reported the explosion tore off Trankovsky's legs and he died from blood loss. Trankovsky had reportedly been under surveillance for a week, and the homemade explosive device was detonated remotely.

Ukraine has targeted dozens of Russian military officers and Russian-installed officials whom Kyiv has accused of committing war crimes in the country.

Little is known about the clandestine Ukrainian resistance cells involved in assassinations and attacks on military infrastructure in Russian-controlled areas.

In October, a high-ranking officer in the GRU military intelligence service who had recently returned from fighting in Ukraine was assassinated outside his house in a village in the Moscow region.

The same month, Ukraine claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack that killed an official at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Kyiv is also believed to have been behind the killing of a former Russian submarine captain who was shot dead while jogging in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar and may have been tracked through his profile on the fitness app Strava.

Apart from military figures, Ukraine has targeted prominent Russian pro-war propagandists, including Darya Dugina, the daughter of an ultra-nationalist Russian ideologue, who was killed in 2023 when a bomb blew up the Toyota Land Cruiser she was driving.

Russia's Federal Security Service, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said last December it had cracked a network of Ukrainian agents in Crimea who were involved in attempts to assassinate pro-Russian figures.

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.

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