Moscow: On Saturday, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the mercenary group Wagner, attended the funeral of a prominent Russian military blogger who was killed in a bombing.
Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, was killed and numerous others were injured when an explosion tore through a cafe in Saint Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city. Investigators believe that the blast was caused by Ukraine and members of Russia's troubled opposition. At the prestigious Troyekurovskoye cemetery in western Moscow, mourners gathered for the closed-casket funeral amid an increased police presence. Some were carrying flowers.
Some supporters sported the letters Z and V—symbols of Moscow's assault on Ukraine—on their clothing. Wagner's calling card, a sledgehammer, was carried by Prigozhin and left by the blogger known for his steadfast opinions.
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Priests in white robes presided over a funeral service at the cemetery while carrying lit candles. Near his coffin, velvet cushions held Tatarsky's awards. President Vladimir Putin awarded Tatarsky the Order of Courage, one of the nation's highest decorations, posthumously for his "bravery," among other honours.
Military bloggers have grown to be a powerful force since the beginning of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and frequently critique the regular forces there. Tatarsky, a native of the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, initially fought alongside pro-Kremlin separatists but later rose to fame as a well-known blogger with 500,000 social media followers.
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In 2014, the year that Russia annexed Crimea, Alexei Sobolev, one of the mourners, claimed that he, like Tatarsky, had joined pro-Kremlin separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The 45-year-old referred to the Russian assault in Ukraine as a "war for survival." He continued, "They've decided to destroy us all; it's just a matter of time." A 33-year-old manager named Anna Ivannikova claimed that Russia was losing its "best" workers.
After Darya Dugina, the daughter of a well-known ultranationalist intellectual, was killed in a car bombing outside of Moscow in August, which Russia also blames on Ukraine, the blogger was attacked. Tatarsky's murder, according to Ivannikova, was a "attempt to kill the very meaning of truth." She continued, "These deaths shouldn't have happened.
The blogger was praised by Prigozhin, whose improvised forces are in charge of the offensive for towns in eastern Ukraine. According to Prigozhin's spokespeople, "He is a soldier who stays with us, whose voice will always live and speak only the truth."
The leader of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, Leonid Slutsky, praised the "true son of great Russia" and expressed hope that thousands would follow in his footsteps while clutching a bouquet of red roses.
Tatarsky recorded himself saying, "We will defeat everyone," at a Kremlin ceremony marking the annexation of four Ukrainian regions last September. We'll all be killed. Everybody will be robbed as necessary. Just how we prefer it.
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Authorities in Russia assert—without any supporting evidence—that supporters of Alexei Navalny, a jailed Kremlin critic, assisted Ukrainian authorities in carrying out the bombing attack. Darya Trepova, a 26-year-old Russian woman, was taken into custody and accused of terrorism.
According to investigators, Trepova gave the blogger, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, an explosives-rigged statuette at a cafe in Saint Petersburg. This week, Putin claimed that Western security agencies had assisted Kiev in staging "terror attacks" in Russia.