Media reports named the dead man as a Ukrainian navy defector who went on to command a Kalibr missile submarine for Moscow's Black Sea Fleet.
A bomb hidden in a rubbish bin tore through a residential street in occupied Sevastopol on Thursday morning, killing a Russian serviceman in what Moscow's security service called a Ukrainian-directed attack, the latest in a series of strikes against military figures tied to the war.
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The explosion struck a stairwell area on Stoletovsky Avenue as the victim was walking with a companion, according to witness accounts carried by Russian Telegram channels.
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) later confirmed that a Defence Ministry serviceman had been killed, without naming him and said it had detained a Russian woman born in 1994 whom it accused of acting on instructions from Ukrainian intelligence.
Several Russian and Ukrainian Telegram channels have identified the dead man as Robert Shageev, a former captain in Ukraine's navy who commanded the submarine “Zaporizhzhia” before defecting to Russia during the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
According to these reports, he rose to deputy commander of the Black Sea Fleet's 4th Submarine Brigade and later took charge of the vessel “Stary Oskol,” one of the Kalibr cruise-missile carriers Russia has used against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.
Kyiv has charged him with treason, though his identity remains officially unconfirmed and Ukrainian authorities have made no public comment on Thursday's blast.
The killing extends a series of attacks on Russian commanders and collaborators, both in occupied Ukrainian territory and inside Russia itself, widely attributed to partisan networks aligned with Kyiv.
On 1 August, an explosion at Moscow's Balzi Rossi restaurant reportedly targeted Alexander Chayko, commander of Russia's Aerospace Forces.