A man killed by a bomb in occupied Sevastopol was likely a Ukrainian naval officer who had switched sides to Russia. The Insider has identified the victim of a 13 August explosion in Sevastopol as Robert Shageev, a former Ukrainian Navy officer, the journalists reported.

The killing reportedly struck a man whose career embodied the choice between homeland and working with enemy forces during the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Robert Shageev commanded the Ukrainian submarine Zaporizhzhia, which was blockaded in Sevastopol's Striletska Bay when Russian forces seized the peninsula, and he deserted the Ukrainian Navy to serve in the Russian fleet, The Insider writes.

The bombing

The explosion was likely a targeted attack. An improvised bomb was placed in a bin next to a bench on Stoletova Avenue in Sevastopol and detonated as a man passed by on the afternoon of 13 August, and he died of his injuries, according to Telegram channels.

Russian authorities confirmed a death without naming Shageev. The FSB confirmed only that a soldier of Russia's Defense Ministry was killed, according to Russian state media. That Shageev was the victim was first claimed by pro-Russian bloggers before The Insider's identification, and the claim has not been officially confirmed.

A suspect was detained

Russian authorities said they detained a suspect. The FSB reported detaining a suspected woman, and a court in Sevastopol later said she had been sent to pre-trial detention, without disclosing her identity, according to The Insider.

Meanwhile, pro-Russian Telegram channels and a Crimean informant claim the detained woman is a 32-year-old. Crimean informer Alexander Talipov, as well as Telegram channels linked to Russian security forces, claim that the detainee is 32-year-old Margarita Reut. Last year, she was fined for "discrediting the Russian army".

According to the New York Post, the Russian citizen appeared on escort websites and also worked as a biologist, producing vaginal suppositories with a floral scent.

The identification comes from Russian sources and has not been verified. Ukraine has not commented on the killing, and no party has claimed responsibility.

Targeted killings and sabotage have recurred in occupied Crimea and Russia through the war. Collaborators, occupation officials, and defectors have been killed in bombings and shootings, some claimed by Ukrainian intelligence or partisans, many never definitively attributed.

On the evening of 12 August 2026, NASA displayed a map on which Crimea was marked as Russian. It happened during the live broadcast of a total solar eclipse: on the graphic, the peninsula was separated from mainland Ukraine by a border line and presented as part of Russia.

Crimea is a Ukrainian region that Russia occupied after its illegal annexation in 2014. Ukraine and the overwhelming majority of the world's states do not recognize that annexation, and no cartographic error changes the peninsula's status under international law. Each uncorrected map treats as ordinary what international law still calls an illegal occupation.

What happened during the broadcast

The US agency streamed the total eclipse, whose path crossed Greenland, Iceland, and Spain, live to a global audience. The error appeared on one of the visibility maps NASA showed during the broadcast: on it, Russia's border was drawn along the land boundary between mainland Ukraine and the peninsula, creating the impression that Crimea belongs to Russia.

Not the only case

In December 2024, FIFA eventually apologized for a map it displayed during the qualifying draw for the 2026 World Cup that left occupied Crimea outside Ukraine's borders. The graphic was meant to show pairs of teams that cannot be drawn against each other for geopolitical reasons, among them Spain and Gibraltar, Kosovo and Serbia, and Ukraine and Belarus. It marked out Ukraine but drew the country without the peninsula. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi objected, Kyiv called the omission an unacceptable error, and football's world governing body pulled the image.

On 24 September 2024, the British broadcaster Sky News published an investigation into a scheme for supplying sanctioned goods to Russia through third countries, Georgia among them. The report was accompanied by three maps of vehicle-transport routes into Russia, on each of which Crimea was marked as Russian territory, Detector Media reports. The maps have since been edited, and Crimea is now marked as part of Ukraine.

The Polish broadcaster TVN showed a map of Ukraine on which occupied Crimea was marked in a separate color during the entertainment show The Floor. The episode aired on Polish television, and the broadcaster published its video on its website in 2025.

Behind Putin's sacred Crimea stood Sevastopol's airfields

Explaining the annexation, Putin spoke not of the military but of sacred things. In his December 2014 address to the Federal Assembly, he called Crimea a place of "enormous civilizational and sacral significance," comparing the peninsula to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Europe rejected that mythology: just ten days after the sham referendum, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 68/262 by a vote of 100 to 11 and declared the annexation illegal.

But behind Moscow's "spiritual" rhetoric lay a different purpose for Crimea. Sevastopol, its airfields, and its logistics turned the peninsula into a springboard for the 2022 invasion, and it is largely for this reason that Ukraine's forces are now focused on striking Crimea. Robert "Madyar" Brovdi, commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces on 10 August said that the strikes are the first phase of a campaign meant to render the peninsula unusable for Russian troops.

"Crimea is one of the key conceptual pillars on the path to ending the war," Madyar told the Associated Press.

A man was killed in an explosion in occupied Sevastopol on the morning of 13 August, according to the Russian outlet ASTRA and the local Telegram channel Emergency/Sevastopol.

The man's identity has not been officially confirmed, but Russian and Ukrainian Telegram channels are circulating claims that he is Robert Shahieiev, deputy commander of the 4th separate submarine brigade of Russia's Black Sea Fleet — a former Ukrainian Navy officer who sided with Russia after the occupation of Crimea.

What happened

According to preliminary information from Russian sources, the man was walking down a set of stairs with a friend when the explosion occurred. He died of his injuries at the scene. The device is believed to have been planted in a trash bin next to a bench, per preliminary reports cited by Ukrainska Pravda.

The Russian Telegram channel "Baza" reported that the blast took place in a park behind a residential block on Stoletovsky Avenue and that forensic investigators were working at the scene. The channel said local residents were being urged to stay alert and avoid approaching suspicious objects.

Some witnesses initially believed a drone had struck a nearby building because of how loud the blast was, according to accounts circulating on Telegram.

Unverified claim about a suspect

The pro-Kremlin channel Mash claimed a woman carrying a backpack may have been involved, alleging she stood between two residential buildings — numbers 28 and 30 — and watched the man before the explosion. Ukrainska Pravda noted this claim has not been confirmed.

No source has provided official confirmation of the victim's identity or a motive for the attack.