Influential Russian Military Blogger Is Killed in St. Petersburg Bombing

NYT WORLD: Influential Russian Military Blogger Is Killed in St. Petersburg Bombing

By Ivan Nechepurenko and Anatoly Kurmanaev
Section: World
Source: New York Times
Published Date: April 2, 2023 at 03:00AM

Vladlen Tatarsky represented a radical wing of pro-invasion bloggers and activists who backed Moscow’s war but also criticized what they saw as the flaws in the Russian Army.

An influential Russian military blogger who called for an escalation of the war in Ukraine was killed when a bomb exploded in a cafe in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Sunday, in what appeared to be one of the most high-profile attacks on a supporter of Moscow’s invasion.
The blogger, Maksim Fomin, who was more popularly known as Vladlen Tatarsky, was giving a public talk in the center of Russia’s second-largest city when the explosion ripped through Street Food Bar #1 Cafe, the Russian Interior Ministry and investigative authorities said.
Videos posted on social media showed Mr. Tatarsky receiving a small statue in his likeness onstage shortly before the explosion. An independent local news outlet, Fontanka, cited a witness as saying the blogger had received the statue as a gift from a woman who introduced herself as a sculptor called Nastya.
Another witness said Mr. Tatarsky had asked the woman to bring the statue to him, after she said she had been told she could not take it inside because of bombing fears, according to the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda. About 100 people had gathered at the cafe to listen to him speak about his experience as a military blogger, Fontanka said.

Read More at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/02/world/europe/russian-military-blogger-explosion.html