A Russian war correspondent was killed on Sunday in an explosion at a café in St Petersburg, Russia’s Baltic Sea metropolis. Another 15 people were injured by the explosion of the explosive device.
The 40-year-old journalist and blogger under the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarskij, from Donbass in eastern Ukraine, was killed on the spot. According to officially unconfirmed media reports, Tatarsky, whose real name is Maxim Fomin, had been invited on Sunday to a “patriotic evening” at the café in the center of St. Petersburg, which according to media reports belonged to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group. A group called Cyber Front Z, which reportedly leased the property, told Telegram, “There was a terrorist attack. We took certain security measures, but they weren’t enough.”
Explosive device built into bust
According to the investigators’ initial findings, the explosive was built into a bust that was presented to Tatarsky as a gift at the meeting. The gift – a gilded bust of the blogger, according to eyewitnesses – was presented to him by a young woman, local media reported. She then took a seat in one of the back rows of spectators, but disappeared after the explosion. The search for her is on-going.
From insurgent to journalist
The blogger and war correspondent initially fought as an insurgent for the independence of Russian-controlled Donbass from 2014 before turning to journalism. On his blog, he distributed videos of what was happening at the front in Ukraine and recently gave young Russian soldiers tips on how to behave on the front line.
Source: Krone
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