Tatarsky – real name Maxim Fomin – was among the best-known members of an influential group of military bloggers dedicated to providing commentary on the Russia’s war in Ukraine. He was killed in a cafe in St. Petersburg on Sunday 2 April with a statuette delivered to him as a gift which then exploded. 32 people were injured in the explosion, 10 of whom are in serious condition. Tatarsky was one of those bloggers who, while fierce towards the defense establishment, was also a lifelong supporter of the war and has always avoided direct criticism of President Vladimir Putin. Tatarsky, 40, was among those who publicly called for Russia to pursue the war even more aggressively. When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited Kherson after that the Russia withdrew from the city last November, Tatarsky demanded to know why Moscow hadn’t seized the opportunity to assassinate him with a drone.
Born in Donbass, the industrial heartland of Ukraine, Tatarsky worked as a coal miner before starting a furniture business. When he ran into financial difficulties, he robbed a bank and was sentenced to prison. He escaped from custody after a Russian-backed separatist rebellion swept Donbass in 2014, weeks after Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula. Then he joined the separatist rebels and fought on the front lines before dedicating himself to blogging.
The Russian security services have arrested Darya Trepova, the woman accused of carrying out yesterday’s attack in a cafe in St. Petersburg, for her murder. The arrest was first announced, then denied and finally confirmed. The National Counter-Terrorism Commission accuses Ukrainian intelligence of being behind the murder of Tatarsky in cahoots with the organization of opposition leader Navalny, currently in prison. Organization called into question by many comments on Telegram by pro-Russian users. “It’s a ready-made terrorist platform with a vast network of sleeper cells and accomplices and activists. The question is: when will we be able to start eliminating as many of them as possible without arrests?” asks “Troika”, which boasts 217,000 members. Even the Rybar channel, with more than a million followers, accuses Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, as well as Soros, as “tips of the iceberg” who act “on command of the Western services and the Nazis of Kiev”. Fifth column, he continues, acting in concert with the sixth which still masquerades as Putinists and loyalists and patriots. Therefore, “a systematic cleansing of the organs of the State and of society is invoked, not only of the fifth column, but also of the sixth. We must defeat liberalism, at least in Russia.”
The allegations against the Ukrainian services were repeated at a press conference by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “The Kiev regime supports terrorism” and “is most likely behind the assassination of Fomin”. “This is the regime that has been behind the killings of people for many years since 2014,” Peskov added, “that’s why a special military operation is underway.”
The Ukrainian authorities did not respond directly to the allegations but President Zelensky said he did not deal with the events taking place in Russia while a senior official believes that the bomb explosion is part of Russia’s internal disputes.