Café explosion in St. Petersburg kills military blogger

Russian Interior Ministry has announced that popular military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was murdered in an explosion that occurred in a St. Petersburg cafe.

The bombing at Street Food Bar No. 1 resulted in at least 19 injuries.

Social media videos depict the explosion and the injured on the street. Whoever caused the explosion is still unknown.

Vladlen Tatarsky, whose true name is Maxim Fomin, was an outspoken advocate for Russia’s conflict in Ukraine.

He was a guest speaker at a gathering the café was hosting when the bomb went off.

He had been covering the front lines in Ukraine and rose to prominence last year after publishing a video shot inside the Kremlin in which he declared, “We will beat everyone, we will murder everyone, and we will loot everyone as required. Exactly the way we like it.”

Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, announced the annexation of four partially-occupied areas of Ukraine during a ceremony held in the Kremlin on that occasion. The world community denounced that land grab. President Putin was initially recognised in his hometown of St. Petersburg.

Russian news outlet RIA cited interior ministry officials as saying that a device was concealed within a statue that was sent to Tatarsky in a package as a gift.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Russia’s infamous Wagner mercenary squad, had previously owned the café that was attacked on Sunday, according to the St. Petersburg news outlet Fontanka.

More than 500,000 people follow Tatarsky on Telegram. He has criticised elements of the Russian war in Ukraine, along with other military bloggers.

On Telegram, a group identifying itself as “Russia’s information army” and going by the name Cyber Front Z claimed to have rented out the cafe for the evening.

It said on Telegram that “There was a terrorist assault. We took certain security precautions, but regrettably they were not enough.” We extend our condolences to everyone who knew Vladlen Tatarsky, a superb war journalist and a close friend of ours.

Darya Dugina, a journalist and famous supporter of the Russian military, was killed in a vehicle bombing outside Moscow in August of last year. Her father, the staunchly nationalist intellectual Alexander Dugin, was a personal friend of Vladimir Putin.

BBC