(Reuters) – A Russian-installed governor in Crimea pledged revenge on Monday against the “terrorists” who killed a high-ranking captain in the Russian navy last week in a hit claimed by Ukrainian security services.
Valery Trankovsky, the chief of staff of the 41st brigade of Russia’s missile ships in the Black Sea, died in a car bombing on Wednesday in the port of Sevastopol at the age of 47.
A source in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) told Reuters last week that Kyiv saw Trankovsky as a “legitimate” target in line with the laws of war because of “war crimes” he committed, including ordering missile attacks that hit civilian targets in Ukraine.
Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol, said those who ordered his death would pay a grave price.
“Non-humans, who dared to do this, await an obvious finale,” Razvozhayev said in a Telegram post. “Because all terrorists have the same fate.”
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which handles probes into serious crimes, said in a statement on Wednesday that an improvised explosive device had detonated in an act of terrorism, killing a serviceman. It did not identify Trankovsky by name.
Trankovsky, a native of Soviet Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, studied radio electronics and subsequently entered the Black Sea Fleet, later graduating from a naval academy in his home city.
Several pro-war Russian figures have been assassinated since the start of the Ukraine war in operations blamed by Moscow on Kyiv, including journalist Darya Dugina, war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky and former submarine commander Stanislav Rzhitsky.
The city of Sevastopol is the traditional headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and it has been heavily targeted by Ukrainian strikes during the conflict.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Lucy Papachristou, Editing by William Maclean)
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