The Russian National Republican Army (NRA), a Kremlin-based opposition group, on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the bomb attack that killed well-known Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky on Sunday.
“This action was carried out by us autonomously. We maintain no contact with and receive no assistance from any foreign structure or secret services”said the NRA cell in St. Petersburg in a message on the Telegram channel Rospartizan.
The note reminds that Tatarsky, the pseudonym of Maxime Formin, is a “war instigator and war criminal” and the café where the explosion took place belonged to the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Progojin, whom they describe as “one of the most famous Russian outlaws”.
The NRA assures that the attack did not target civilians and that all those injured are supporters of the Russian military campaign in Ukraine and justify “the war crimes committed by the regime of Ukraine”. [Vladimir] Putin (Russian President) in Ukraine”.
The statement denies that Daria Trepova – the prime suspect in the attack according to Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee – has any connection to the explosion.
“We call on all Russian citizens to follow our example and oppose the Russian criminal regime in all ways until it is completely destroyed. Criminals will not feel safe on Russian soil. Russia will be free!”concludes the report, also released by exiled Russian politician Ilia Ponomariov, the only deputy to vote against the 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula.
The National Anti-Terrorism Committee blames the attack on Ukraine’s secret services, which reportedly deployed people close to the illegal Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK) of Russian opponent Alexey Navalny, currently in detention.
According to the commission, Trepova was an “active supporter” of the FBK, which for many years denounced corruption in public administration.
Trepova had already been sentenced to ten days in prison in February 2022 for unauthorized action against the war in Ukraine.
Russia’s Investigative Committee on Tuesday charged Trepova with committing a terrorist attack with an explosive device and through an organized group, which could carry 20 years in prison and two months in preventive detention.
On Monday, 26-year-old Trepova acknowledged handing over the statuette that caused the explosion at a St Petersburg cafe, following video of the interrogation released by the Interior Ministry.
Trepova is said to have handed the figurine to 40-year-old Tatarsky with an explosive in it that was activated with a remote control.
The murder of the “blogger” recalls the August 2022 attack that killed Daria Dugina, daughter of the ultra-nationalist intellectual Alexandr Dugin, considered close to the Kremlin.
The NRA also claimed responsibility for this attack, although Russian authorities accused Ukrainian secret services of involvement, which Kiev denied.
Russian President Vladimir Putin posthumously awarded Tatarsky with the Order of Valor on Monday, as he did with Dugina.
Born in the Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, Tatarsky was part of the pro-Russian separatist militia that fought against Kiev’s army in 2014.
The “blogger”, who had more than 560,000 subscribers to his Telegram channel, became known in September 2022 when in the Kremlin, after watching a speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin, he assured: “We will beat them all [os ucranianos]kill them all, we’ll steal as many as we want”.
The military offensive launched by Russia in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 has so far led to the flight of more than 14.6 million people – 6.5 million internally displaced persons and more than 8.1 million to European countries – according to the latest data from the UN, which classifies this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
At least 18 million Ukrainians currently need humanitarian aid and 9.3 million people need food aid and shelter.
The Russian invasion – justified by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, with the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security – was condemned by the international community at large, which responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and Russia to impose political and economic sanctions.
The UN presented 8,451 civilian deaths and 14,156 wounded as confirmed since the start of the war, underlining that these numbers are well below the real ones.
Source: DN
