The ‘ordinary’ woman accused of assassinating a Russian commander in Crimea

Friends close to Margarita Reutt are shocked she could allegedly plant bomb that killed Ukrainian defector Robert Shageev, while others recall a stubborn grit to see any plan through

It was just after dawn in Sevastopol when a powerful explosion tore through a quiet square in a residential district of the Russian-occupied Crimean port city.

Hidden inside a rubbish bin, a bomb containing the equivalent of about 500g of TNT detonated on 13 August as Robert Shageev, the deputy commander of a Russian Black Sea fleet submarine brigade, walked past in naval uniform. He was killed on the spot.

Within hours, investigators had a suspect. Police detained Margarita Reutt, a 32-year-old resident of Sochi, the Russian resort city about 300 miles across the Black Sea from Sevastopol.

During a search, investigators said they had found a remote control they believed was used to detonate the bomb that killed Shageev, a former commander of Ukraine’s only submarine who switched allegiance to Russia in 2014 when Moscow annexed Crimea.

According to the security service, she confessed to the attack and said that a handler linked to Ukrainian intelligence had promised her a large payment in cryptocurrency and documents that would allow her to leave Russia afterwards.

Those assertions could not be independently verified, and Russian security agencies have previously publicised purported confessions from detainees before their cases have reached court. But several people previously accused by Russia of carrying out similar attacks against military figures were later found by reporters to have been involved in the operations Moscow had accused them of conducting.

What exactly drove Reutt to allegedly embark on such an audacious mission remains unclear. As with other cases involving accused Ukrainian intelligence operations, her trial is likely to take place behind closed doors, offering little opportunity for her to give her own account publicly.

But interviews with a dozen friends and acquaintances, combined with an examination of years of her social media activity, offer a portrait of a determined and adventurous woman whose attitude towards her country appears to have hardened gradually, with signs of a more striking change emerging in the months leading up to the attack.

“Rita believed that the country was going in the wrong direction,” said a longtime friend, using the diminutive form of her name. “But I am still shocked she went so far,” the friend added.

Russia quickly accused Reutt of carrying out the attack on the orders of Ukrainian intelligence. Kyiv has not commented on the bombing or Reutt’s alleged role in it.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s intelligence agencies have been linked to a string of assassinations and attempted killings of senior Russian military officers whom Kyiv has accused of involvement in the invasion. Ukrainian officials have occasionally acknowledged involvement in such operations, but more often have remained silent.

The attacks have involved an array of methods and recruits, from committed anti-Kremlin saboteurs to Russians promised large sums of money.