A Russian war correspondent has died in an explosion at a café in the center of the Russian Baltic Sea metropolis of Saint Petersburg. Another 25 people were injured when the explosive device detonated, according to the Tass state agency. The 40-year-old journalist and blogger using the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarskij, who comes from Donbass in eastern Ukraine, was killed on the spot.
According to officially unconfirmed media reports, Tatarsky, whose real name is Maxim Fomin, had invited people to a “patriotic evening” in the “Stritfud-Bar No.1” cafe in the center of Saint Petersburg on Sunday. According to media reports, this is said to have belonged to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the notorious Wagner mercenary group.
According to the investigators’ initial findings, the explosive device was built into a bust that was presented to Tatarsky as a gift at the meeting. The gift – eyewitnesses reported of a gilded bust of the blogger – was presented to him by a young woman, local media wrote. She then sat in one of the back rows of spectators, but disappeared after the explosion. The search for her is in full swing.
The blogger and war correspondent initially fought as an insurgent for the independence of Russian-controlled Donbass from 2014 before turning to journalism. In his blog, he distributed videos of what was happening at the front in Ukraine and most recently gave young Russian soldiers tips on how to behave in the front lines.
