Ukraine Kills Senior Officer From Russia’s Black Sea Fleet

Ukrainian agents have killed a top officer from one of Russia’s Black Sea missile-boat squadrons in Sevastopol, taking revenge for a series of cruise missile strikes on civilian targets in 2022. 

Capt. First Rank Valery Trankovsky, commander of the Black Sea Fleet’s 41st Brigade, was assassinated in a car-bomb attack on November 13. According to the Security Service of Ukraine, Trankovsky lost both legs in the attack. Video shared on Russian social media showed that the blast peeled up the car’s roof and blew off all of its doors, suggesting an internal explosion. 

“Trankovsky . . . attacked Vinnytsia with Kalibr missiles in July 2022. Twenty-nine civilians were killed as a result of that attack,” an SSU source told Ukrainska Pravda. “[He] also repeatedly attacked Odesa and other peaceful cities, killing many civilians. He was an absolutely legitimate target in terms of the laws and customs of war.”

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The 41st Missile Boat Brigade is in charge of a squadron of 10 corvettes and four Tarantul-class missile boats. The corvettes are priority targets, as they are capable of launching long-range Oniks or Kalibr cruise missiles at infrastructure in Ukraine. Two warships in the flotilla, Askold and Samum, were damaged by Ukrainian drone strikes in 2023.

Ukraine’s drone and missile campaign against the Black Sea Fleet has paid dividends, forcing the Russian Navy out of the western half of the region. Russian warships have largely abandoned Sevastopol, the fleet’s historical home base, after a series of successful cruise missile strikes and drone-boat attacks.