A blast in a cafe in St Petersburg killed well-known Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky on Sunday, Russian news agencies reported. They added that the blast was caused by an explosive device. Tatarsky is extremely well-known in Russia and has over 560,000 followers on Telegram. His real name was Maxim Fomin and he was a highly vocal supporter of Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine.
“One person was killed in the incident. He was military correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky. Sixteen people were injured,” Interfax news agency quoted the interior ministry as saying.
Watch: The moment the blast hit the St Petersburg cafe
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Orcs Telegram Channels report the death of Rashists military propagandist Vladlen Tatarsky.He has died after a powerful explosion in a cafe, centre of St. Petersburg today.
Footage: moment of explosion🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/gwN7kRyxA1
— АЗОВ South (@Azovsouth) April 2, 2023
He had also attended the lavish Kremlin ceremony last September when Russia proclaimed its annexation of four partly occupied regions of Ukraine.
According to a St Petersburg website, the cafe once belonged to Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner private army. The Wagner mercenaries are currently fighting alongside Russian soldiers in Ukraine.
Six other people are said to have been injured in the blast, the RIA news agency said. There is no information yet about who was responsible for the blast or whether Tatarsky was deliberately targeted. If he was deliberately hit, then this will be the second assassination on Russian soil of a figure associated with the war in Ukraine.
Darya Dugina, the daughter of an ultra-nationalist, was killed in a car bomb attack in August last year. Russia’s Federal Security Service accused Ukraine’s secret services of the killing near Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the attack “evil”, but Ukraine denied it was involved in the attack.
(With inputs from agencies)
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