An assassination attempt in the middle of the Russian metropolis of Saint Petersburg cost Maxim Fomin his life. An explosive-rigged bust of himself exploded during one of his performances in a bar owned by the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Under the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarski, the Ukrainian-born has made a name for himself as a so-called military blogger since the beginning of the Russian attack on his homeland, demanding a more radical war policy from the leadership in the Kremlin and crying out for blood. Now he was buried in Moscow. His funeral made it clear under whose aegis he had spread his crude slogans.
More than a thousand people are said to have come to say goodbye to the Z propagandist – including Prigozhin himself. The head of the Wagner mercenaries left his troops at the front in Ukraine for the occasion. “We will do everything to ensure that his voice will ring out for many years to come. So that he will go down in the history of Russia as a person who could not be broken, could not be killed,” Prigozhin said on the sidelines of the funeral.
A sledgehammer was laid on Fomin’s closed coffin. “For Vladlen Tatarski, from the fighters of the private army Wagner,” read the inscription. The sledgehammer has been known as a symbol of the mercenary force since the execution of the deserter Yevgeny Nushin at the latest. The coffin was covered with three flags: the flag of Russia, the flag of General Baklanov, and the flag of the Wagner squad.
“Vladlen Tatarsky did a lot so that we could achieve victory and destroy the enemy. We thank him for that, we will always remember him,” Prigozhin said through his press service.
After the attack, it was quickly suspected that the assassination was a warning signal to Prigozhin himself. In recent months, the Wagner boss has become increasingly entangled in a conflict with the Russian Defense Ministry and the secret services. With his presence at the funeral and the shaping of the coffin, Prigozhin leaves no doubt about a connection between himself and the killed Fomin.
Meanwhile, politicians and propagandists work to capitalize on the death of the self-proclaimed military blogger. Among them is the leader of the far-right LDPR party, Leonid Slutsky. The Duma deputy used the funeral to reiterate his favorite recent demand: the reintroduction of the death penalty in Russia.
A demand that, after Fomin’s death, was heard with a new intensity on Russian state television.
