“We will defeat everyone, we will kill everyone, we will steal everything we need. Everything will be as we wish,” said Russian ultranationalist military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in a video from the Kremlin. He died on Sunday April 2, killed in a bomb explosion in a cafe in Saint Petersburg.
“A girl” “likely” brought the explosive device, according to a source quoted by the Ria Novosti agency. “There was a figurine in the box: a gift intended for Mr. Tatarsky”, adds this source. According to the first elements communicated, “at 6:13 p.m. (5:13 p.m. in Paris), the police of the Vasileostrovsky district received information that an explosion had occurred in a cafe on the Universitetskaya quay, at number 25”. According to details given to the TASS news agency by the local prosecutor’s office, the explosion took place in the café Street Food Bar No. 1 located along the Neva, not far from the historic center of Saint Petersburg. She also injured 19 people.
Members of the Cyber Front Z group, which describes itself on social media as “Russia’s information soldiers,” said they had rented the cafe for the evening. “There was a terrorist attack. We took some security measures but unfortunately they were not enough,” they said on Telegram. “St. Petersburg police and emergency services are also working on site. The causes and circumstances of the incident are being established,” the Russian Interior Ministry said.
St. Petersburg prosecutor Viktor Melnik visited the scene, TASS news agency said, adding that “an investigation has been launched”.
Member of the military blogosphere in Russia
Aged 40 and born in the Ukrainian Donbass, Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name is Maxim Fomin, was a well-known figure in the military blogosphere in Russia, with more than 560,000 subscribers on his Telegram channel. He gave an often critical look at the course of the war in Ukraine and gave advice for those mobilized, according to TASS.
If Vladlen Tatarsky was deliberately targeted, it would be the second assassination on Russian territory of a figure associated with the war in Ukraine.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) accused Ukraine’s secret service last August of killing Daria Dugina, daughter of Russian nationalist Alexander Dugin, in a car bomb attack. kyiv has denied any involvement.
