The escort, the biologist and the explosive: how the submarine commander who betrayed Ukraine was eliminated
32-year-old Margarita Raut was arrested on suspicion of planting an explosive device and eliminating in Sevastopol a former submarine officer who defected from Ukraine to Russia. According to reports, she received payment in crypto and expressed no remorse during her interrogation.
A 32-year-old Russian woman has been accused of the dramatic elimination of a former Ukrainian submarine commander who defected to the regime of Vladimir Putin. According to a report in the British "Telegraph", Margarita Raut was arrested in Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula on suspicion of carrying out the assassination attack on behalf of the Ukrainian special services. The target was Robert Mansurovich Shagayev, a naval officer who was wanted in Kyiv for treason.
According to the investigation, Raut planted an explosive device in a trash can near a bench while the officer was walking with a friend on Stoletovsky Avenue. The explosion was so powerful that local residents initially thought it was a drone strike on a residential building. Shagayev died on the spot from his wounds.
Shagayev's past made him an obvious target. He commanded the "Zaporizhzhia", the only submarine of the Ukrainian Navy, until he defected to Russia during the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Afterward, he climbed the ranks and served as a submarine commander in the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and as deputy commander of Russia's 4th Independent Submarine Brigade. In July 2022, the authorities in Ukraine officially notified him that he was suspected of treason.
The profile of the assassin, as emerges from the reports, is particularly unusual. Raut, a native of Yaroslavl who lived in the resort city of Sochi, apparently appeared on escort service websites while simultaneously working as a biologist. According to the Russian Telegram channel "Mash", during her interrogation, Raut was asked if she regretted killing a Russian military officer, and she replied with a complete negative. The channel noted that she received payment in cryptocurrencies for the elimination and planned to flee abroad on a flight from Sochi.
Raut had a previous history of opposition to the regime. In July 2025, she was fined and arrested for several days after shouting "You deserve it, Russians!" in response to news of a Ukrainian drone attack. Despite her punishment, this did not prevent her from posting on social media that she is "ashamed to be Russian". The regional governor described the case as a "cynical and disturbing crime", and added that the suspect shows no remorse. The elimination joins a series of assassinations of senior military officials assisting the Russian war effort in the last month.
