A bomb has detonated in a café in St. Petersburg, Russia. A journalist was killed. The café is said to belong to the boss of the Wagner mercenary group.
There was an explosion in a cafe in St. Petersburg, Russia. A Russian war blogger died in the process, as the state agency Tass reported. The 40-year-old journalist and blogger using the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarskij, who comes from Donbass in eastern Ukraine, was killed on the spot.
The governor of Saint Petersburg said, according to the Ria Novosti agency, that 25 other people were injured, 19 of them were taken to hospitals.
Bomb is said to have been presented in a statuette
There was initially no official information about the background to the explosion. According to the investigators’ initial findings, the explosive device was built into a statuette that was presented to Tatarsky as a gift at the meeting.
As Ria Novosti reports, the figure was examined before it was handed over to Tatarsky. He himself knew the woman who gave him the statuette. According to the report, she has given him postcards several times at events. The Russian medium “Fontanka” reports that the bomb detonated three minutes after the handover. The authorities are investigating a murder.
Journalist and security researcher Ruslan Trad shared a video on Twitter purporting to show the crime scene after the explosion:
The café is a venue for discussion evenings
According to officially unconfirmed media reports, Tatarsky, whose real name is Maxim Fomin, invited people to a “patriotic evening” in the café in the center of Saint Petersburg on Sunday.
According to media reports, the “Street Food Bar No. 1” is said to belong to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group. According to Ria Nowosti, discussion evenings are to be held there every Saturday and Sunday, organized by a group called “Cyber Z Front”.
Telegram channel shows proximity to the Wagner Group
As Tass writes, since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Tatarsky has analyzed the course in videos and given advice on a daily basis. He shared the videos and other posts on his Telegram channel. There he also repeatedly shared and wrote posts that showed his closeness to the Wagner mercenary company.
For example, he shared a video from another channel showing a soldier playing the violin in front of a man who was tied up. The man seems to be unconscious again and again, “Georgian” is written on his forehead. The description reads: “A Georgian mercenary captured near Bakhmut listens to a Wagner concert.”
Tatarskij published his last contribution this Sunday at 3 p.m. He shared a picture said to have been taken in Moscow. On it you can see a large poster advertising Wagner. “It’s nice to see outdoor advertising like this. I saw more Wagner posters in Rostov,” he wrote, adding: “But in many cities there aren’t any yet. I hope the only reason is that they’re still there.” didn’t have time to order them.”
