Killing of war blogger was terrorist act

Russia yesterday accused Ukraine of organising the murder of a prominent war blogger in a St Petersburg cafe and arrested a young Russian woman shown in a police video admitting planting the bomb that killed him and injured over 30 others.

The Kremlin called Vladlen Tatarsky’s murder a “terrorist act,” citing the statement from the National Anti-terrorism Committee as evidence that Ukraine might have been behind the killing. “The active phase of the investigation is now under way,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“We see quite vigorous steps to detain suspects. Let’s be patient and wait for the next announcements from our special services, which are working on this.”

Ukraine, which did not take responsibility for Sunday’s attack, blamed “domestic terrorism” for the murder of Maxim Fomin, a Russian military blogger and cheerleader for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine who called himself Vladlen Tatarsky.

Darya Trepova, the 26-year-old Russian woman arrested over his murder, confessed in a video released by the interior ministry that she had planted the bomb that killed him.

But unconfirmed Russian media reports said she had told investigators that she had been set up and had not known she was carrying a bomb.

Footage of the moment the blast ripped through the cafe released by the Fontanka.ru news outlet showed a powerful explosion shaking the length of the ground floor venue, bringing down parts of its outside terrace in the process.

Tatarsky’s murder appeared to be the second assassination on Russian soil of a figure closely connected to the conflict in Ukraine, after the car bomb killing of Darya Dugina, daughter of a nationalist ideologue, outside Moscow last summer. Russia also accused Ukraine at the time. Kyiv denied involvement.

With over 500,000 followers on the Telegram messaging service, Tatarsky – who had himself fought in Ukraine in the past – mixed ultra-nationalist messaging with criticism of the way Moscow is prosecuting what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.