A prominent Russian military blogger was killed on Sunday and 25 others injured in an explosion at a caf&eacute in Russia’s second-largest city of Saint Petersburg, the interior ministry said, according to the AFP news agency.
“One person was killed in the incident. He was military correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky,” the ministry said on Telegram.
Investigators later said they had confirmed “an unidentified explosive device exploded in a caf&eacute in central St Petersburg”, and had opened a murder inquiry, according to AFP.
The health ministry said that a total of 25 people were injured in the blast, 24 of whom were taken to hospital. Six of the injured were said to be in serious condition.
The TASS news agency quoted a law enforcement source as saying the blast was “caused by an improvised explosive device hidden inside a statue given to Tatarsky as a gift”.
The RIA Novosti agency, quoting a source close to the inquiry, said “a girl” had supposedly dropped off a package with a “figurine” inside intended for the blogger.
“She gave it to him… and all of a sudden there was an explosion,” Alissa Smotrova, a woman who was at the cafe, told AFP, adding, “There was blood and pieces of glass…”
Another source told RIA Novosti that Tatarsky “knew” the suspected deliverer of the package, and that they had crossed paths at other “events”, without giving further details.
Tatarsky, whose real name is Maxim Fomin, has more than 500,000 followers on Telegram and is in favor of Russia’s campaign in Ukraine, noted AFP.
He made his name early in the operation by publishing videos analyzing the military situation on the ground and offering advice for mobilized troops, according to TASS.
The 40-year-old Tatarsky came from the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, which Russia claims to have annexed and which is currently mostly held by Russian troops.
Reacting to the attack, Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak said on Twitter the “question of when domestic terrorism would become an instrument of internal political fight was a matter of time”.
In August 2022, Russia’s FSB security services accused Ukraine of being behind a car bombing outside Moscow that killed the daughter of hard-line Russian ideologue Aleksander Dugin. Kyiv has denied the charges.