On the morning of November 13, a car explosion occurred in Sevastopol, occupied Crimea. The attack targeted 47-year-old Valery Trankovsky, a first-rank naval captain and reportedly the Chief of Staff of the Black Sea Fleet’s 41st Missile Boat Brigade.
Trankovsky succumbed to his injuries following the blast.
A source within Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) later confirmed to the Kyiv Post that the explosion was the result of a successful SBU operation, following a week of intense surveillance.
According to the SBU, Trankovsky was responsible for planning and directing cruise missile attacks on Ukrainian civilians from the Black Sea. He is allegedly linked to the deadly missile strike on a shopping mall in Vinnytsia in July 2022, which killed 29 civilians, including children, as well as multiple attacks on civilian sites in Odesa.
“Payback for crime is only a matter of time. No occupier and murderer can feel safe wherever he is,” the SBU source commented.
