The Surprising Assassin: The Russian Citizen Who Carried Out a Deadly Assassination on Behalf of Ukraine
A powerful explosive device led to the liquidation of the senior officer who defected from Ukraine. Russia arrested a seemingly innocent citizen, who was said to have "had many plans for the future." Acquaintances revealed that she had recently begun to change - and had dramatically turned against Russia.
News in brief: An explosion attributed to Ukraine liquidated a week and a half ago the commander of submarines who defected to the Russian army. Russian authorities arrested Margarita Roit, a 32-year-old citizen. Acquaintances revealed that she was a fearless woman who did daring things. Recently, a turnaround occurred, and she began to attack Russia and turn against it. If she had an idea in her head, she would carry it out, even if it was something like this.
A powerful explosion shook a quiet square in a residential area in Sevastopol a week and a half ago, in the port city on the Crimean Peninsula occupied by Russia. An explosive device hidden inside a trash can exploded exactly when a Russian officer in naval uniform passed by. According to Russian authorities, the device contained explosive material with power equivalent to about 500 grams of TNT, and the officer was killed on the spot. The deceased was Robert Shagayev, deputy commander of the submarine brigade of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Before that, he was the commander of the only submarine that was in Ukraine's possession, but in 2014 he defected to Russia's side after the annexation of Crimea by Moscow.
Within hours of the explosion, Russian authorities announced that they had arrested a suspect in the act: Margarita Roit, 32, a resident of the city of Sochi. During a search of her home, investigators said, a remote control was found that was suspected of being used to activate the device. The Russian security service, the FSB, claimed that Roit confessed to the act and said that an operator linked to Ukrainian intelligence promised her a large sum of money in cryptocurrencies and documents that would allow her to leave Russia after the operation.
Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian intelligence services have been linked to a series of liquidations and attempted liquidations of senior officers in the Russian army, whom Kyiv accused of involvement in the war. Sometimes Ukrainian officials admitted involvement in such actions, but in most cases, they remained silent. In an extensive article in The Guardian, it was written that Roit's case is particularly striking because she does not look at first glance like someone who was supposed to participate in an assassination operation. For years, friends and acquaintances described her as a friendly, warm, and beloved woman, but also as someone who was drawn to adventures and risks.
Roit, who was born Margarita Yakovlev, grew up in Yaroslavl after her parents divorced, with her grandmother, whom she adopted as her surname. Already in her childhood, friends said, she was fearless. She used to climb trees and jump from cars, things that, according to one of her friends, even boys were afraid to do. Later, she studied management in Novosibirsk, joined a skydiving club, and performed jumps from Soviet-era planes, often as the only woman in groups of men in camouflage uniforms. She also participated in amateur karting competitions and played water polo, and even became the goalkeeper for the university team.
In those years, there was almost nothing that indicated hostility toward the Kremlin. On the contrary. In Novosibirsk, she was a beloved member of a patriotic volunteer group that searched for the remains of Soviet soldiers who died in World War II. After her studies, she moved to Sochi. She tried for a short time to manage a travel agency, and later joined the company Vitauct, which deals with alternative medicine and longevity. The company's founder described her as a completely normal person and said that there was nothing in her behavior that indicated she was capable of carrying out such an action. According to him, it is possible that she fell under the influence of another person.
On social media, her life also seemed routine for a long time. She posted content about health and animal rights, participated in alternative medicine forums, and traveled abroad frequently, including to Turkey, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. Acquaintances described her as a beautiful, popular woman who seemed to have many plans for the future. However, gradually, a change occurred in her positions. She began to express growing concern about environmental problems in Sochi and joined volunteer initiatives. After a major oil spill in the Black Sea in December 2024, following the sinking of two Russian tankers in a storm, she traveled to the city of Anapa to join volunteers who cleaned the beaches of the polluting oil.
According to her friends, the war in Ukraine was a significant turning point. She became increasingly critical of the fighting and even began to speak out publicly against it. One of her friends said he warned her to be quiet, for fear that she would complicate things for both of them. In July 2025, according to them, her opposition to the war was already expressed publicly. During a train ride from Samara to Adler, she was fined under the Russian law against discrediting the armed forces after she allegedly shouted "You deserve it, Russians!" when news broke of a Ukrainian drone attack on a train station in the Rostov region. A few months later, she published the results of a genetic test according to which she is 98% Russian, along with a hashtag in which she wrote that she is ashamed to be Russian.
Despite the change in her positions, her acquaintances did not identify a dramatic change in her life. She continued to work at odd jobs, appear in friends' videos, and travel. Even last March, she still posted photos from a vacation in Cuba. Only at the end of spring, some of her acquaintances said, did her behavior begin to change in a way they found difficult to explain at the time. She became more withdrawn and refused to join a trip her friends planned for the fall, which was unusual for her because, according to her friends, she was almost always ready to join a new adventure. Around that time, she purchased an additional phone. She explained to a friend that she needed it for work purposes, but the explanation did not convince him. One of the friends said he thought she was hiding something and even raised the possibility that she had a new partner.
In the summer, Roit began spending more time in Crimea, the place where she was later arrested. She told one of her acquaintances that she was looking for possible locations there for video shoots, after she began appearing more frequently in music clips. What exactly she did in Crimea and when, if at all, her connection with Ukrainian intelligence was formed, remains unclear. If she was indeed recruited by Ukraine, as the Russian authorities claim, Roit joins a growing group of Russian citizens who are accused of being recruited by Ukrainian intelligence to carry out sabotage and liquidations deep within Russian territory. Such people have an advantage from the perspective of their operators, because they can move within Russia more freely and arouse less suspicion than Ukrainian agents.
For those who knew her for years, the gap between the woman they knew and the suspicions against her remains difficult to understand. An old friend of hers said that there was always an extraordinary determination in her to carry out anything she decided on.
"If she had an idea in her head, she would carry it out," he said. "Even if it was something like this."
