The murder of Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarskyi is being investigated as a “crime of great interest,” the Russian authorities announced, the BBC reports. It will be recalled that Tatarsky, an active supporter of Russia’s war in Ukraine, died on Sunday evening as a result of an explosion in a cafe in St. Petersburg. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the president of Ukraine, called the explosion an “internal political struggle” in Russia, writing on Twitter: “Spiders eat each other in a jar.”

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Russia’s Investigative Committee opened an investigation into what it called a “high-interest crime.” Conflicting reports about the explosive device appear in the Russian media.

According to official sources cited by Russian state media, Tatarsky was allegedly given a statuette in a box with a bomb hidden inside. The number of people injured in Sunday’s explosion in the St. Petersburg cafe has increased to 30, the Washington Post reports with reference to the Ministry of Health of Russia. Six of them are in serious condition, the ministry said.

In a video that went viral on Telegram after the explosion, a military blogger can be seen receiving the statuette and joking about it.

Cyber ​​​​Front Z, a group that calls itself the “intelligence forces of Russia” on Telegram, reports that it rented a cafe for the evening: “There was a terrorist attack. We took some security measures, but unfortunately they were not enough. Condolences to all who knew our wonderful military correspondent and friend Vladlen Tatarsky.”

Tatarsky reported from the front lines in Ukraine and gained particular notoriety last year after he released a video taken inside the Kremlin in which he said: “We will beat everyone, kill everyone, rob everyone.” each world as needed. Just the way we like it.”

Military analyst Sean Bell told Sky News it was “highly unlikely” that the Ukrainian military was behind the attack on St Petersburg as it was not a military target.

The authorities detained a resident of the city, who is suspected of being involved in the explosion.

Yevhen Prigozhin Cafe

“He was in the hottest spots of the special operation and always came out alive. But the war caught him in a cafe in St. Petersburg,” said Semen Pegov, who blogs under the nickname War Gonzo.

The cafe would belong to the financier of the Wagner group Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) notes.

If Tatarsky had been targeted intentionally, it would have been the second assassination on Russian soil of a figure linked to the war in Ukraine.

Tatarsky had more than 500,000 followers on Telegram, where he and other military bloggers criticized aspects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The blogger joined the forces of Russian separatists in 2014, when they seized part of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine. Tatarskyi was born in Makiivka, Donetsk region. He joined the militants in Donetsk when he was released from a prison where he was serving time for armed robbery. Donetsk region is one of the regions that Russia claims to have annexed.

The authorities detained a resident of the city, who is suspected of being involved in the explosion.