Russian military blogger killed in explosion in St Petersburg, say reports

He was among hundreds of attendees at a lavish Kremlin ceremony last September to proclaim Russia’s annexation of four partly occupied regions of Ukraine, a move that most countries at the U.N. condemned as illegal.

A St Petersburg website said the explosion took place at a cafe that had at one time belonged to Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner private army that is fighting for Russia in Ukraine.

RIA news agency said six other people were injured in the blast. There was no indication who was responsible.

If Tatarsky was deliberately targeted, it would be the second assassination on Russian soil of a figure associated with the war in Ukraine.

Russia’s Federal Security Service accused Ukraine’s secret services last August of killing Darya Dugina, the daughter of an ultra-nationalist, in a car bomb attack near Moscow that President Vladimir Putin called “evil”. Ukraine denied involvement.