Former Ukrainian submarine commander who defected to Russia killed in Sevastopol blast

On August 13, a 49-year-old man named Robert Shageyev was killed in an explosion in Sevastopol. Shageyev was a former Ukrainian navy captain who switched sides to Russia in March 2014. He was walking along a staircase in a park when a powerful explosive device planted in a nearby trash bin detonated.

Shageyev spent the following twelve years building a career in the Russian navy, but he began as captain of Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine's only combat-ready submarine at the time. The vessel had been repaired by the Ukrainian side a year earlier and was part of the Ukrainian fleet stationed in Sevastopol alongside the Russian navy — Moscow leased docks there for its Black Sea Fleet until 2017.

From resistance to surrender

When Russia's invasion of Crimea began in the spring of 2014, unmarked troops surrounded the submarine and demanded the crew surrender. "As long as I'm in command, we won't surrender — the crew will stay on board," Shageyev declared at the time. But the standoff lasted only a few days: the captain eventually ordered the hatch opened to let Russian troops in, then agreed to join the Russian armed forces. After several months in St. Petersburg, he returned to Crimea holding the rank of captain in Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

According to Ukrainian military intelligence, Shageyev took part in launches of Kalibr cruise missiles — the same type of missile regularly fired from Russian ships and submarines at Ukrainian cities.

Who could be behind the blast

According to the newspaper Kommersant, Russian police detained a suspect accused of preparing and detonating the explosive device — a Russian citizen born in 1994 and originally from Sochi. According to unconfirmed reports, during her first interrogation she claimed that whoever ordered the attack had promised her payment in cryptocurrency and a way to leave Russia. This information cannot be independently verified.

Not the only case of switching sides

Shageyev was not the only prominent Ukrainian naval officer accused of treason. Former commander Denys Berezovsky was also charged after first pledging loyalty to Crimea's residents and later agreeing to join the Russian military as well. Rumors circulated in Kyiv that FSB officers had kidnapped his family to blackmail him into switching sides, but this version was never confirmed. Berezovsky now serves as deputy commander of Russia's Pacific Fleet.

A contrasting example is Colonel Yuliy Mamchur, former commander of an air brigade at the Belbek base near Sevastopol. He and his subordinates refused to surrender, for which they were forcibly seized and detained by Russian troops. He couldn't be broken, and after rejecting every offer to "switch sides," he was deported from Crimea. Mamchur later became a member of the Ukrainian parliament representing former President Petro Poroshenko's party before returning to military service.

During the occupation of Crimea, a significant number of Ukrainian servicemen defected to Russia. Before the invasion, Kyiv had 13,500 troops stationed on the peninsula — only about four thousand remained loyal to their oath. The rest either joined the Russian military or ended their military careers altogether. Of the 1,400 Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) officers in Crimea, only 250 stayed loyal to Kyiv.

Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz