APRIL: Prominent Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was killed by a bomb at a cafe in St. Petersburg on Sunday in what appeared to be the second murder on Russian soil of someone closely linked to the war in Ukraine.
The Russian State Investigative Committee announced that it had opened a murder investigation. The state news agency RIA reported that 25 people were injured and 19 hospitalized.
A senior Russian official pointed the finger at Ukraine without presenting any evidence. An adviser to the President of Ukraine said that "domestic terrorism" was breaking out in Russia.
Tatarsky, real name Maxim Fomin, had over 560,000 Telegram subscribers and was one of the most influential military bloggers, supporting Russia's war effort in Ukraine and often criticizing Russia's military high command.
"We will defeat everyone, we will kill everyone, we will steal everyone we need. Everything will happen as we see fit,” was shown in a video clip last September at a Kremlin ceremony at which President Vladimir Putin recognized four occupied regions of Ukraine as Russian territory — a move recognized by most countries as illegally rejected. The TASS news agency quoted an unnamed source as saying the bomb was hidden in a miniature statue that Tatarsky had given as he spoke to a group of people in a cafe, a statuette of a helmeted soldier.The explosion happened a few minutes later.
Denis Pushylin, the head of the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine's Donetsk region, which was transferred to Moscow, has publicly suggested that Ukraine is to blame.
"He was brutally killed. Terrorists can't do otherwise. The Kiev regime is a terrorist regime.It must be destroyed, there is no other way to stop it," he said. It was only a matter of time - "like a maturing abscess" - before Russia was engulfed by what he called domestic terrorism.
"The spiders, they eat themselves out of the jar," he said. for carrying out the attack, which Putin called "evil".Ukraine has denied any involvement.
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Russian war bloggers, a group of military correspondents and independent army commentators, have been given wide latitude by the Kremlin to publish hardline views on the war, which has now lasted 14 months. Putin even appointed one of them as a member of his Human Rights Council last year.
They were shocked to learn of Tatarsky's death.
“He was at the hot spots of a special military operation and always got out alive.But the war found him in a St. Petersburg cafe,” said Semyon Pegov, who writes under the pen name War Gonzo.
Aleksander Khodakovsky, a prominent pro-Russian figure in eastern Ukraine, wrote: “Max, if you were nothing you would die of 'vodka and a cold'. But you were dangerous for them, you did your job like nobody else. We will pray for you, my brother."