A Russian military blogger was killed on Sunday by a bomb explosion in a St. Petersburg cafe where he was speaking at a conference for an organization called “Cyber Z Front” that is favorable to the operation of Russian forces in Ukraine.
At least 32 other people were injured, eight of whom remain in serious condition. A 26-year-old woman was quickly arrested, presented by the Russian authorities as affiliated with Vladimir Putin’s longtime opponent, Alexeï Navalny. BFMTV.com takes stock of what we know at this stage.
• An explosion in a cafe in St. Petersburg
At 18:13 local time on Sunday, police in the Vasileostrovsky district of the northwestern Russian city of Saint Petersburg received reports that “an explosion occurred in a cafe on 25 Universitetskaya Embankment.”
According to details provided to the Russian state news agency Tass by the local prosecutor’s office, the explosion took place in the “Street Food Bar No. 1” cafe, located along the Neva, not far from the historic center of St. Petersburg. .
• Famous Russian military blogger assassinated
“As a result of the incident, one person died. (…) it is the military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky,” the Russian Interior Ministry was quick to say in a statement after the explosion.
Born in the Ukrainian Donbass, 40-year-old Vladlen Tatarsky, real name Maxim Fomin, was a well-known figure in the military blogosphere in Russia, with more than half a million subscribers to his Telegram channel.
Vladlen Tatarskiï has developed his community on the social network by publishing, since the start of the Russian military offensive in Ukraine, videos analyzing the situation on the ground and advice for those mobilized, according to Tass.
According to Russian media, he had been imprisoned in Ukraine for a robbery in 2011. In 2014, taking advantage of clashes unleashed in eastern Ukraine by Moscow-led separatists, he escaped from prison to join these fighters. In 2019 he left the separatist forces, according to the daily Kommersantto make a name for himself as a blogger.
Last September, he surprised at a reception in the Kremlin celebrating the unilateral annexation of the Ukrainian regions.
“We are going to defeat everyone, we are going to kill everyone, we are going to rob all the people we need, everything will be as we want,” he said on camera.
According to a latest report, 32 other people were also injured in the blast, eight of whom are in serious condition. The explosion was of a power equivalent to 200 grams of TNT.
• A café owned by Wagner
The Cyber Front Z group, which describes itself on social media as “Russia’s information soldiers”, said it had rented the cafe for the night.
The attacked coffee belonged to the leader of the Wagner paramilitary group, Yevgeny Prigojine. The latter stressed Monday morning on Telegram that he had entrusted the establishment in question to the “Cyber Z Front”.
On Sunday night, Wagner’s boss paid tribute to the blogger in a video apparently shot from the town of Bakhmout, the epicenter of the fighting in eastern Ukraine.
• A young woman arrested
Shortly after the explosion, a source quoted by the Russian agency Ria Novosti said that “a girl” would have “probably” brought the explosive device to the cafe. “There was a figurine in the box: a gift intended for Mr. Tatarsky,” added this source.
Investigators announced on Monday the arrest of a young woman, Daria Trepova, a Russian citizen presented as an activist for Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Fund, banned in Russia since 2021. Vladimir Putin’s opponent, jailed for more than two years, is serving a sentence to nine years in prison for fraud and also faces charges of extremism.
“I brought a statuette that exploded” into this cafe, Daria Trepova, 26, said in a video released Monday after her arrest by the Russian Interior Ministry. When a policeman asked her who gave her the bomb, she replied that that would explain “later”.
• Moscow accuses Kyiv and Navalny
Russia’s Anti-Terrorism Committee said on Monday that the explosion “was planned by the Ukrainian secret service, which recruited agents among those who collaborate with the so-called Navalny Anti-Corruption Fund.” The Russian president’s spokesman, Vladimir Putin, denounced “an act of terrorism.”
An official in the Ukrainian presidency, Mykhailo Podoliak, on Sunday denied any involvement on Twitter, believing it to be “domestic terrorism” due to rivalries within the Russian regime.
After the accusations presented against the organization of Alexei Navalny, his spokesman, Kira Iarmych, denounced a setup by the Kremlin.
“Alexei will soon be tried for extremism, risks 35 years. And the Kremlin said to itself: it’s great for the future to be able to add ‘terrorism’ to it,” he wrote on Twitter.
On the other hand, the leader of the Wagner group, Evguéni Prigojine, took the opposite view of the authorities, excluding that these murders were prepared by the Ukrainian secret services. “I will not accuse the kyiv regime of these acts. I believe that a group of radicals is in action, ”he said on the Telegram channel of his press service.
Source: BFM TV
