Ukraine claimed responsibility for the assassination. This is a “successful special operation by the SBU (its security services),” said a source within this structure. “As a result of the explosion, the Russian captain had his legs torn off and died of hemorrhage.”
“War criminal”
The slain officer, identified as Valery Trankovsky, a leader of a Russian missile ship brigade, was “a war criminal who ordered the launch of cruise missiles from the Black Sea at civilian targets in Ukraine”, and represented “an absolutely legitimate target”, according to the SBU. He was notably involved in a missile strike against Vinnytsia, a town in west-central Ukraine, which killed around thirty civilians.
This assassination in Sevastopol, a large city on the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia and headquarters of the Russian Black Sea fleet, is the latest in a series of attacks by kyiv targeting Russian officers and pro-Kremlin figures, also both in occupied Ukrainian territory and inside Russia. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, which was not recognized by the international community.
