Moment Putin war propagandist 'is handed statue containing bomb minutes before it blows him to bits in St Petersburg café' - as Russian puppet regime in eastern Ukraine blames Kyiv for blast that killed blogger and wounded 25
A Russian war propagandist who called for the destruction of Ukraine was killed in a bomb attack in St Petersburg.
Video shows the moment pro-Putin cheerleader Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name is Maxim Fomin, was handed a statuette of himself by an unnamed woman that was believed to have contained the explosive just minutes before he was blown to bits at the political event in the cafe.
Around 100 people were at the event, with at least 25 injured by the blast and four in a critical condition. No group came forward to claim responsibility for the death, which could be the second political assassination of a pro-Putin Russian on Russian soil since the war started. Analysts in the country speculated that the attack was carried out by the Ukrainian secret service.
It is not known if the woman who handed him the statue, which Russian media said was a gold-coloured likeness of Tatarskiy and contained 200g of TNT, was aware of its contents.
In remarks recorded on video, a witness said that a woman who identified herself as Nastya asked questions and exchanged remarks with Tatarsky during the discussion.
The witness, Alisa Smotrova, quoted Nastya as saying she had made a bust of the blogger but that guards asked her to leave it at the door, suspecting it could be a bomb. Nastya and Tatarsky joked and laughed. She then went to the door, grabbed the bust and presented it to Tatarsky.
He reportedly put the bust on a nearby table, and the explosion followed. Smotrova described people running in panic, some hurt by shattered glass and covered in blood.
A video posted on Russian messaging app channels showed the cafe after the explosion. Tables and chairs were broken and stained by blood, and shards of glass littered the floor.
Russian media said investigators were looking at the bust as the possible source of the blast but have not ruled out the possibility that an explosive device was planted in the cafe before the event.
Russia's Investigative Committee, the state's top criminal investigation agency, opened a probe on charges of murder.
No one publicly claimed responsibility, but military bloggers and patriotic commentators immediately pointed a finger at Ukraine and compared the bombing to the killing last August of Darya Dugina, a nationalist TV commentator. She was killed when a remotely controlled explosive device planted in her SUV blew up as she was driving on the outskirts of Moscow. Source
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