Vladlen Tatarsky
SAINT PETERSBURG (RUSSIA), April 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — An explosion in a St Petersburg cafe has killed prominent Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, Russia’s Interior Ministry has confirmed.
At least 25 people were injured in the bomb blast at Street Food Bar No 1.
Videos posted on social media show an explosion and injured people on the street. It is not clear who was responsible for the blast.
Vladlen Tatarsky (real name Maxim Fomin) was a vocal supporter of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
He was a guest speaker at an event hosted by the cafe when the bomb went off.
According to Interior Ministry sources quoted by Russian state media, Tatarsky was presented with a statue in a box as a gift, which had a bomb hidden inside.
The cafe targeted on Sunday was previously owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s notorious Wagner mercenary group, the St Petersburg news site Fontanka reports.
Tatarsky has more than 500,000 followers on Telegram, where he and other military bloggers have criticised aspects of the Russian campaign in Ukraine.
Cyber Front Z, a group calling itself “Russia’s information troops” on Telegram, said it had hired out the cafe for the evening.
“There was a terrorist attack. We took certain security measures but unfortunately they were not enough,” its post on Telegram said.
“Condolences to everyone who knew the excellent war correspondent and our friend Vladlen Tatarsky.”
Last August a car bomb attack near Moscow killed Darya Dugina, a journalist and prominent supporter of the Russian military. She was the daughter of ultra-nationalist philosopher Alexander Dugin, a close ally of Putin.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova praised Tatarsky and bloggers like him as “defenders of the truth”.
“Russian journalists constantly feel the threat of reprisals from the Kyiv regime,” she wrote on Telegram. Tatarsky was “dangerous” for Ukraine, she wrote, “but bravely went on until the end, fulfilling his duty”. — NNN-AGENCIES
