NOS News•
A well-known Russian military blogger has been killed in an explosion at a café in St Petersburg. It concerns 40-year-old Vladlen Tatarski. Sixteen people were also injured, according to the Russian Interior Ministry.
According to unconfirmed reports, a “patriotic evening” took place in the cafe. A woman allegedly handed Tatarski a statuette, which then exploded. As far as is known, no one has claimed responsibility.
Watch footage of the explosion and damage to the cafe below:
Russian military blogger dies in St Petersburg cafe explosion
Tatarski, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, had more than 560,000 followers on Telegram and was one of the top military influencers. He favored a tough approach to Ukraine. He previously advocated “a carpet bombing of Kyiv and firing missiles at the whole country”.
Last September, Tatarsky attended a ceremony in which four Ukrainian provinces were declared Russian territory.
According to Russian media, the cafe where the explosion was today was owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin. He is the founder of the Russian mercenary army Wagner, which fights for Russia in Ukraine.
If Tatarski was the target of the explosion, it would be the second attack on Russian soil targeting a person associated with the war in Ukraine. Last August, 30-year-old Darja Dugina was killed in a bomb attack on the car she was driving. Dugina was the daughter of the ultra-nationalist Russian political thinker Aleksandr Dugin.
