This past Sunday, an explosive incident in St. Petersburg resulted in the death of a military blogger known to post in favor of supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine, explained a report from Russian authorities.
Russia’s Interior Ministry explained that Vladlen Tatarsky, which is a pseudonym for Maxim Fomin, perished due to an explosion at a local cafe where he was issuing a speech as a guest speaker for an event, as reported by BBC News.
“The makeshift explosive device that went off in a St. Petersburg cafe was stuffed with striking elements. The target was war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky,” explained a spokesperson for area law enforcement agencies to Russian state news service TASS.
Reportedly, the spokesperson went on to add that the explosive device was about the size of a soup bar and was stashed inside of an award being given to Tatarsky. The report from TASS explained that preliminary data showed that the device sported a yield of well over 200 grams of TNT and went off near the stage where Tatarsky was carrying out the event.
Upwards of a dozen or more other people were reportedly both wounded and hospitalized, though the exact number seems to vary based on the source.
It was not clear at first who the responsible party for the blast actually was.
A video posted to social media shared via a number of Russian state media outlets seemingly showed the blast taking place from a distance, blowing out the windows of a building, and images from the aftermath.
Cyber Front Z, a pro-Russian group, sent a post out on Telegram to state that it had reserved space at the cafe, Street Food Bar No. 1, for the evening, as explained in a report from Agency France-Presse.
“There was a terrorist attack. We took certain security measures but unfortunately they were not enough,” the group stated. “Condolences to everyone who knew the excellent war correspondent and our friend Vladlen Tatarsky.”
A report from the New York Times stated that the 40-year-old Tatarsky had managed to garner over 550,000 followers on the Telegram messaging app. He was known to be from Makiicka, which is located next to Donetsk, an area of Ukraine that has been claimed by Russia as of last year.
A report from Bloomberg News stated that Tatarsky was at the Kremlin ceremony to officially announce the Russian annexation fo Donetsk alongside a group of three other occupied Ukrainian regions.
“We will defeat everyone, we will kill everyone, we will rob everyone who needs to be robbed,” Tatarsky stated in a video at that time. “Everything will be the way we like it.”
