A prominent Russian military blogger who was killed in an explosion at a cafe in St. Petersburg on Sunday afternoon has received a posthumous award from Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin stated on Monday that Vladlen Tatarsky, whose true name was Maxim Fomin, had received the Order of Courage for his “courage and daring demonstrated during professional duties.”
At a propaganda event staged at the cafe, the self-styled “war correspondent” was reportedly killed after receiving a tiny statue of himself packed with explosives.
Tatarsky was a fanatical supporter of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine who filed regular reports from the front lines, and had accumulated more than 560,000 followers on his Telegram channel.
A video of the event showed him joking about the bust and putting it on a table next to him shortly before it exploded, killing him and injuring a further 30 people.
Investigators labelled the bombing an act of terrorism, and have arrested a St. Petersburg woman named Daria Trepova in connection with the attack.
Ms Trepova, a 26-year-old activist, had previously been detained for participating in a rally against the war on February 24, 2022, the day of the invasion, and she spent 10 days in jail.
Russian authorities claim that Trepova’s political sympathies allied her with jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, and have blamed ‘Ukrainian special services’ for coordinating the attack.
The Interior Ministry released a video showing Trepova telling a police officer that she brought the statuette that exploded to the café.
When asked who gave it to her, she said she would explain it later. The circumstances under which Trepova spoke were unclear, including whether she was under duress.
According to Russian media reports, Trepova told investigators she was asked to deliver the bust, but did not know what was inside it.
Russian investigators show woman suspected of involvement in deadly cafe blast
Navalny, the Kremlin’s fiercest foe who had exposed official corruption and organised massive anti-government protests, is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence that he has denounced as a political vendetta.
A spokesperson for the ACF has warned that authorities could use the claim of involvement by political opponents as a pretext to extend Navalny’s prison term.
They also speculated that Russian security agencies could be behind the explosion as part of a plot to cast Navalny’s supporters as an ‘internal enemy’.
Russian media has compared the attack to the August 2022 assassination of fellow pro-Kremlin commentator Darya Dugina, who was killed when a car-bomb planted in her vehicle blew up as she drove on the outskirts of Moscow.
Ukraine was also blamed for Dugina’s death, but denied involvement in the killing.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the restaurateur and mercenary chief who heads the Wagner Group military contractor spearheading Moscow’s offensive in eastern Ukraine, said he owned the café and allowed patriotic groups to use it for meetings.
He said he doubts the involvement of Ukrainian authorities in the bombing, and said it was likely launched by a ‘group of radicals’ unrelated to the government in Kyiv.
However, Progozhin was swiftly contradicted by Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who blamed Kyiv for the attack, who blamed Kyiv for the attack and said the bombing justified the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine.
At a press conference on Monday, Peskov said: ‘Russia has faced the Kyiv regime, which has supported terrorist activities.
‘That is why the special military operation is being conducted.’
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky meanwhile brushed off the attack while speaking to reporters.
‘I don’t think about what is happening in St Petersburg or Moscow. Russia should think about this. I am thinking about our country,’ he told journalists.