An explosion in a cafe in the center of Saint Petersburg on Sunday caused the death of Maxime Fomin, better known under the pseudonym of Vladlen Tatarsky. A young woman was arrested on Monday.
With more than 560,000 followers on the social network Telegram, he was one of the most influential voices among Russian military bloggers, according to the British newspaper The Guardian*. Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name is Maxim Fomin, was killed in an attack carried out with “an explosive device” in a cafe in Saint Petersburg (Russia), Sunday April 2, the authorities announced.
According to a latest report, at least 32 people were injured in this explosion. Eight of them were in serious condition on Monday. Franceinfo reviews what we know about this attack and the targeted Russian blogger.
An explosion during a conference in a cafe
Sunday, “At 6.13 p.m., the police in the Vasileostrovsky district received information that an explosion had occurred in a cafe on the Universitetskaya Embankment, at number 25”, said the Russian Interior Ministry. The explosion took place in the Street Food Bar No. 1 cafe, near the historic center of the city.
The Cyber Front Z organization, which describes itself as a collection of “information soldiers of Russia”, said that she had rented the cafe for the evening in order to organize an event there. This organization, favorable to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, held a conference there. She had rented the cafe from the leader of the paramilitary group Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of the cafe. The latter confirmed this information on Monday on Telegram.
A witness quoted by the Associated Press* recounts having seen a woman talking with the military blogger, then bringing him a statuette bearing the image of the latter. According to this same source, Vladlen Tatarsky then placed the object on a table near him, then the explosion took place. The people present then hastened to flee the scene, some being injured by pieces of glass, and others covered in blood.
Blogger supporting Russian invasion of Ukraine killed
The Governor of Saint Petersburg, Alexander Beglov, confirmed on Telegram** that the blogger Vladlen Tatarsky had been killed in this “inhuman and monstrous crime”. “Many of those who came to meet him were injured”, he added. The information was also confirmed on Telegram** by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation.
The 40-year-old blogger was born in the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine and obtained Russian citizenship in 2021, according to the New York Times*. According to the Associated Press, he worked as a miner, then started a furniture company, before going to prison after a bank robbery. Vladlen Tatarsky then joined the pro-Russian separatist forces in the Donbass from 2014, then he made a name for himself in the middle of the Russian military blogosphere.
In a few years, the blogger had managed to build up a community of half a million subscribers on Telegram. Since the beginning of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, he broadcast videos analyzing the conflict, taken from the field. THE Guardian and the Moscow Times* report that he was present in the Kremlin in September, during the ceremony announcing the annexation by Moscow of four partially occupied regions of Ukraine. “We will defeat everyone, we will kill everyone, we will rob everyone we need, everything will be as we like”, he said in a video recorded during this ceremony. In a message posted on Telegram in January, in line with a brief ceasefire decreed by the Kremlin, he said he hoped that Russian forces could “kill every person dressed in the uniform of the enemy army”, report it New York Times. The blogger did not hesitate, moreover, to shed light on the problems of the Russian army. The Russian Presidenton Monday posthumously decorated with the Order of Courage “for the courage and bravery he has shown in the performance of his professional duties”.
A young woman arrested
The investigation launched after the explosion on Sunday led to the arrest of Daria Trepova, “suspected of being involved in the explosion of a cafe in St. Petersburg”, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation announced on Telegram** on Monday. The suspect was held in her apartment and questioned by investigators, according to the Russian Interior Ministry quoted by the Tass news agency. In a video broadcast by the same source*, Daria Trepova declares that “I was the one who introduced the statuette that exploded”. However, it does not provide information on the person or persons who provided it with the object. The young woman, born in 1997, had participated in a rally last year against the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, then had been detained for ten days following this demonstration, according to court documents cited by Mug*.
On Monday, Russia’s Anti-Terrorism Committee said the attack was “planned by the secret service of Ukraine, which recruited agents among those collaborating with the so-called Anti-Corruption Fund” of the Russian opponent Alexei Navalny. The day before, an official of the Ukrainian presidency, Mykhaïlo Podoliak, had denied any involvement, considering that it was a matter of “domestic terrorism”. The spokeswoman for Alexei Navalny’s organization denounced a coup by Russian power.
Militia leader Wagner, owner of the cafe where the attack took place, said he had doubts about Ukrainian involvement in the explosion.
* These links refer to articles in English.
** These links refer to articles in Russian.