An explosion at a cafe in St Petersburg has left at least one person dead and 16 injured, the Russian Defense Ministry said, confirming reports by Russian news agencies.
The explosion, according to the Russian news agencies TASS and Ria, was allegedly caused by the placement of a bomb, and the dead is the Russian blogger, expert on military issues, Vladen Tatarsky.
“The strength of the explosive device was more than 200 grams of TNT,” a law enforcement source told TASS.
Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, had more than 560,000 followers on the Telegram app and was one of the most featured bloggers on military issues. On his blog he made critical comments about Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Tatarsky was among hundreds of attendees at a ceremony in the Kremlin last September to announce Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian provinces, which Moscow partially holds. The annexation was condemned as illegal by most countries at the UN.
A Russian website from St. Petersburg said the explosion occurred at a cafe once owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder and head of the Wagner mercenary army, which is fighting alongside the Russian armed forces in Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
RIA reported that six other people were injured in the explosion.
There is currently no indication of who is responsible for the incident.
If Tatarsky was the target of a bomb blast, it would be the second killing of a person on Russian soil related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s Federal Security Service accused Ukraine’s secret services last August that killed Daria Dugina, daughter of an ultranationalist, in a car bomb attack, near Moscow, an attack which President Vladimir Putin described as “vicious”. Ukraine has denied any involvement in the case.
Source: News Beast
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