A suspected bomb went off on Sunday in a cafeteria in St. Petersburgcausing the death of a well-known military blogger and left another 15 people injured, emergency services reported to Russian news agencies.
“It has been established that 15 people were injured. one person died”, a spokesman for the local emergency services told the TASS news agency, in Russia’s second city. In addition, they confirmed that among the deceased is the propagandist Vladlen Tatarsky.
The blogger, whose real name was Maxim Fominhad more than 560,000 followers on Telegram and was one of the most prominent of the influential military bloggers who have provided often critical commentary on Russia’s war in Ukraine.
He was one of hundreds of attendees at the lavish ceremony held in the Kremlin last September to proclaim Russia’s annexation of four partially occupied regions of Ukraine, a move that most countries condemned at the UN as illegal.
According to a St. Petersburg website, the explosion took place in a cafeteria that once belonged to Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Group, which fights for Russia in Ukraine with mercenaries.
At the moment it was not officially indicated who was responsible for the explosion.
If Tatarsky was deliberately targeted, it would be the second killing on Russian soil of a figure linked to the war in Ukraine.
Last August, the Russian Federal Security Service accused the Ukrainian secret services of murdering Darya Dugina, the daughter of an ultra-nationalist, in a car bombing near Moscow that President Vladimir Putin described as “diabolical”. Ukraine denied its involvement.
News in development
Source-www.infobae.com