A pro-Putin blogger killed after being hit by a homemade bomb disguised as a statue while lecturing in a crowded Russian café.
Well-known Russian army blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, was killed in the blast that left 4 fighters for their lives and injured a total of 25 people.
Reports imply that another 19 people were taken to hospital as a result of the explosion.
Law enforcement officials told Russia’s TASS news firm that “an improvised explosive device exploded in a St. Petersburg café filled with cluster munitions. “
Tatarsky, whose real name is Maxim Fomin, had more than 560,000 followers on Telegram. Reports suggest he gathered members of the public at an event attended by about a hundred other people at the time of the attack.
A makeshift device the “size of a bar of soap” exploded near the level of the Street Bar cafeteria.
An eyewitness said: “Suddenly, the explosive wave burst, smoke came out and other people ran over.
“I ran down the street.
“When I went back to get my phone, I saw 3 or 4 of them mendacity on the floor. “
The coffee is believed to belong to the Russian oligarch and Vladimir Putin’s boyfriend, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group paramilitary organization.
Several hours before the explosion, Tatarsky praised billboards in Moscow for recruits of Wagner fighters.
“It’s great to see that publicity,” he said.
A video showed the moment when Tatarskiy won the golden statuette, which gave the impression of constituting the war propagandist.
Internal resource reports cited through Russia’s RIA news firm said the bomb hidden in a statue was given to the blogger as a gift. The statuette reportedly passed through an anonymous woman to a café in town.
Tatarsky held him and looked at him approvingly, moments before the explosion that killed him.
Another witness said: “There were about a hundred people. A [woman named] Nastya sitting at a table. “
She said she was an artist and sought to show the heroes of Putin’s army special operation.
He reportedly told Tatarsky: “It’s easy. That’s why I’ve only made your bust so far. It’s in the coat closet [at the front of the cafeteria]. “
The witness said: “She went there, took a big box and gave it to him. It was golden.
“He said thank you and put him next to him. She sat in her seat and 3 minutes later there was an explosion.
“Everyone running. This Nastya didn’t seem to have left before. “
Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov reported: “According to eyewitnesses, Fomin came over and gave him a statuette, which exploded in his hands.
“Fomin died instantly. “
BAZA media reported that the explosion was radioactivated and that caused the explosion of the plaster figure.
The blogger had reported from the front in Ukraine and Russian state newspaper Russia Today joined Russian militias in Donbass in 2014.
Tatarsky told the Kremlin last year: “We will beat Array, we will kill Array, we will steal if necessary. “
“The way we like it. “
The TASS source added: “The improvised explosive device hidden in a figurine was presented to the war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky, after which it exploded. “
The figure was made of plaster, making it difficult to trip over explosives, he said.
Russia’s Interior Ministry said everyone in the café at the time of the explosion was being “verified for participation. “
Military analyst Sean Bell told Sky News it was “unlikely” the Ukrainian military was the blast.
He said: “It may just have been the resistance movement, much more likely. While Russians suffering from the war in Ukraine are expanding, internal unrest is spreading at home. “
One of President Zelensky’s advisers, Mykhailo Podolyak, claimed that the explosions were due to “domestic terrorism” and that “spiders eat themselves in a jar. “
It is not yet known who the explosion is.
Despite this, Podolyak said: “It’s in FR [Russian Federation]. . . Spiders are eaten in a jar.
“The consultation of when domestic terrorism would be a tool of internal political struggle was only a matter of time, because the advance of a mature abscess. Irreversible processes and disorders 2. 0. wait RF. While we will be attentive”
Telegram organization Cyber Frotn Z said it rented the place for the night and was the target of a “terrorist attack. “
They said, “There was a terrorist attack. We have taken some security measures, but unfortunately they have not been enough. “
“Condolences to everyone who knew the war correspondent and our friend Vladlen Tatarsky. “
Putin enthusiast Alexander Dugin, whose daughter Darya Dugina was killed in a bomb blast, posted a photo of his daughter with Tatarsky and wrote: “This is how the story of true Russian saints is created. Real. No fictional. Not taken out of the finger. . Heartbeat. If it is not holiness, then there is no holiness. “
Tatarsky’s cheerleaders on the war led him to use words that claimed that “a Ukrainian is a Russian who has become mentally ill. “
Butusov added that Tatarsky is a former Ukrainian citizen who was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2011 for the armed robbery of a bank in Donbass.
He says he launched it in 2014 to fight Ukraine in the region.
He said in a video in October: “The long-term of Ukraine, those other people living there, is that they are Russians and they will return to their general state.
“When we won in Ukraine, the long term of those other people is that they are Russians who recovered from their madness, their non-secular travesty and returned to their general state. “
Doomed Russian President Putin claims Ukraine is culturally Russian.
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