ISW and Navalny confidants believe the FSB secret service was behind the attack on military blogger Tatarsky in Saint Petersburg.
With connections to Vladimir Putin?
Munich/Saint Petersburg - A popular Russian military blogger is killed and more than 30 other people injured in a bomb attack on a bar in the metropolis of Saint Petersburg.
The explosion happened during a discussion of the group "Cyberfront Z" who went to a "patriotic evening" in the cafe "Street Food Bar No.
1” loaded.
The restaurant is reportedly owned by the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
He had recently publicly exposed the apparatus of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Vladlen Tatarsky: Russian military blogger dies in bomb attack in Saint Petersburg
The 40-year-old publicist Vladlen Tatarski, who comes from eastern Ukraine but had sided with the pro-Russian separatists in the Ukraine war, was killed.
Did that cost him his life?
Or that he had criticized the Russian Ministry of Defense for the faltering military campaign?
The US think tank Institute for the Study of War and the Russian opposition have now put forward the thesis that the Russian secret service FSB could be behind the assassination attempt on Sunday (April 2).
For its part, the Kremlin blames Kiev and the Russian opposition for the imprisoned opponent of the regime, Alexei Navalny.
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Killed in a bomb attack in Saint Petersburg: Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky.
© IMAGO/Alexander Demianchuk
A 26-year-old woman who, according to Russian authorities, is linked to Navalny's team is now in custody.
Her alleged name according to ISW: Daria Trepowa.
The Interior Ministry from Moscow published a video in which the alleged perpetrator is said to have been in the café.
She handed Tatarski, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, a bust with an explosive device that exploded a few minutes later.
Attack on Vladlen Tatarsky: Kremlin blames Kiev and Navalny group
"There are indications that the Ukrainian secret services could have something to do with the planning of this terrorist attack," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Navalny's team has since rejected allegations by the Russian Anti-Terrorism Committee.
Rather, agents of the domestic secret service FSB were responsible for the murder of the propagandist, said opposition members Ivan Zhdanov and Leonid Volkov, who live in exile, on Monday (April 3).
For the Russian investigators, the accusation that the opposition was involved in the murder was convenient in that Navalny could be sentenced to the maximum penalty for terror, Zhdanov said, according to the
dpa
.
He and Volkov accused the FSB of staging political murders for years.
The FSB itself "eliminated" this blogger who criticized the warfare of the Ministry of Defense in Moscow.
Vladlen Tatarski: Propaganda for the Kremlin and the Ukraine war on Telegram
Fomin aka Tatarski was followed by more than half a million people on his Telegram channel.
After the Russian invasion of Donbass, Tatarsky joined the militia of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic.
In 2019, he reportedly moved to Moscow and began blogging under the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarsky - a reference to the main character of Russian author Viktor Pelevin's novel Generation P.
Tatarski was considered a publicist who glorified violence - and demanded the death of as many of his compatriots as possible.
And he appeared repeatedly in Putin's circle.
Tatarsky was present in September 2022 in the Kremlin during the ceremony for the illegal annexation of the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Cherson.
In Russia's government, however, he is said not only to have had advocates, according to ISW from a Western perspective.
Had he made himself unpopular?
Advisor to the Ukrainian Presidential Office, Mikhailo Podoliak, said from Kiev's point of view that Fomin's death was the result of political power struggles in Russia.
Vladlen Tatarski: Military blogger's name was Maxim Fomin - and he came from Ukraine
Fomin's assassination may be evidence that Putin's tolerance of the influential military bloggers is waning, "but it could instead be due to Fomin's closeness to Prigozhin," writes the ISW.
If so, Fomin's assassination at Prigozhin's bar could be "part of a larger pattern of escalating Russian internal conflicts involving Prigozhin and Wagner."
The attack seems to have been intentionally "staged in a room that belongs to Prigozhin," says the US think tank.
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Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was killed in an explosion at a St. Petersburg cafe.
© IMAGO/Alexander Demianchuk
Moreover, the bombing “may have been intended as a warning to Prigozhin, who is increasingly questioning key Kremlin points about the war in Ukraine and even indirectly signaling interest in the Russian presidency, whether in competition with Putin or as his successor ", is it [called.
Bomb attack on Maxim Fomin: location of the assassination Message to Yevgeny Prigozhin?
The site of the attack could also be a message to civil society, the ISW speculated.
In bars, advances by the Russian military in Ukraine are being questioned.
In March, for example, the ISW allegedly observed FSB raids on bars in Moscow and St. Petersburg: "This attack could be an attempt to intimidate military bloggers associated with Wagner." (pm
)
List of rubrics: © IMAGO/Alexander Demianchuk
