A senior Russian naval officer has been killed in a car bombing in occupied Crimea – the latest in a series of targeted attacks on Russian military personnel.Russian investigators said an unnamed serviceman was killed when an improvised explosive device detonated on Wednesday in the port city of Sevastopol – the primary headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet – and that the killing was being treated as terrorism.

A high-ranking Russian naval officer from the Black Sea Fleet has been killed in a car explosion in Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula, media reports say. Ukrainian media said he was commander of a missile ship brigade, citing a source in the security service SBU, which is said to be behind the killing.

Vladimir Putin's forces in occupied Crimea were dealt a hammer blow on Wednesday when a Ukrainian car bomb "liquidated" one of Russia's senior naval officers. Russian captain Valery Trankovsky was killed by an improvised explosive device hidden in his car - which Russia's state investigative committee has labelled an act of "terrorism".