The number of those in a bomb blast in a St. Petersburg cafe on Sunday (April 2) has risen to 32. Russian state-run news agency TASS says bomb may have been hidden in small statue. Russia points finger at Ukraine, while Ukraine at 'domestic terrorism' in Russia.
Russian media reports say a woman suspected of blowing up a prominent war blogger in a St Petersburg cafe on April 2 was detained.
Maxim Fomin, a well-known Russian military blogger and cheerleader for Russia's invasion of Ukraine who called himself Vladlen Tatarsky, was killed on Sunday in what appeared to be the second assassination on Russian soil of a figure closely associated with the conflict.
The woman arrested – Darya Trepova, 26, – was a Russian citizen who had previously been detained for protesting against the war in Ukraine, the state-run news agency TASS said.
TASS suggested Trepova may have approached Tatarsky at Sunday's cafe event and given him a statue as a gift which was packed with the explosives that killed him.
Unconfirmed Russian media reports said she had been discovered hiding in the St Petersburg apartment of a friend of her husband's and had planned to flee to Uzbekistan.
More than 30 people were reportedly injured in the blast, which killed the well-known Russian military blogger.
Tatarsky had reportedly invited people to a “patriotic evening” event hosted by Cyber Front Z, a group that refers to itself as “Russia's information troops.”
The explosion took place at the Street Food Bar No. 1 café, which according to Deutsche Welle (DW), at one time had belonged to Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner mercenary group that is fighting for Russia in Ukraine.
TASS news agency quoted a law enforcement source saying the blast was "caused by an improvised explosive device hidden inside a statue given to Tatarsky as a gift."
Some Russian commentators saw the bombing as the latest sign that violence related to the war in Ukraine is increasingly spilling onto Russian territory.
If Tatarsky was deliberately targeted, it would be the second assassination on Russian soil of a high-profile figure associated with the war.
Recall, 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. But Ukraine denied involvement.
This time, Russia has also pointed finger at Ukraine. Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the attack in a statement, with its spokesperson Maria Zakharova saying bloggers like Tatarsky were regularly threatened by Kyiv.
Zakharova said that the lack of a reaction from Western governments “speaks for itself given their ostensible concern for the well-being of journalists and freedom of expression.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine has fingered at 'domestic terrorism' in Russia.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wrote in English online that he believed the attack was domestic terrorism in Russia.
"Spiders are eating each other in a jar. Question of when domestic terrorism would become an instrument of internal political fight was a matter of time Podolyak wrote.
