Ukraine war: Russia’s number one war Correspondent killed

The killing of Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky is being investigated as a “high-profile murder”, authorities have said.

According to a report by BBC.com Tatarsky, a vocal supporter of Russia’s war in Ukraine, died in an explosion at a St Petersburg cafe on Sunday evening.

Twenty-four others were taken to hospital and six were in critical condition, the health ministry said.

Videos posted on social media showed a blast and injured people on the street.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attack.

Interior ministry officials said police were called to Street Food Bar No 1 – near the Neva river – at 18:13 local time (15:13 GMT).

Russia’s Investigative Committee, the country’s top criminal investigation agency, has opened an investigation into what it described as a “high-profile murder”.

Criminologists have been sent to the scene, it added on Telegram.

Tatarsky was a guest speaker at an event hosted by the cafe when the bomb went off.

There are conflicting reports in Russian media about the explosive device. According to official sources quoted by Russian state media, Tatarsky was presented with a statue in a box as a gift, which had a bomb hidden inside.

Video circulating on Telegram after the blast showed him being handed a statue and making jokes about it. The BBC has been unable to verify whether it was the explosive.

Unlike many other Russian military bloggers and state media journalists in Ukraine, Tatarsky took up arms in combat operations, says BBC Russian correspondent Olga Ivshina.

He had reported from the Ukraine front line and gained particular notoriety last year after posting a video filmed inside the Kremlin in which he said: “We will defeat everyone, we will kill everyone, we will rob everyone as necessary. Just as we like it.”