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The Kremlin has said Ukraine may be behind the murder of military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, describing the killing as a “terrorist attack.”
Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed in an explosion at a cafe in St. Petersburg on Sunday. The incident left 32 people injured, state media reported.
“Judging by the NAC [National Anti-Terrorism Committee] statement, there is evidence that the Ukrainian special services may be involved in the planning of this terrorist attack,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on a conference call with reporters Monday.
No evidence has yet been presented about who carried out the cafe attack, but Russia’s state media RIA Novosti carried a statement Monday from the NAC saying that the explosion involved agents of the Ukrainian special services and associates of Navalny-founded Anti-Corruption Foundation. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also pointed the finger at Ukraine, without citing evidence.
Alexey Navalny’s longtime associate rejected accusations that the jailed opposition leader’s Anti-Corruption Foundation was involved with the explosion.
Ukraine has said little about the attack, beyond blaming in-fighting in Russia. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the President’s office, wrote on Twitter: “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.”
Peskov wished a speedy recovery to those injured in the attack and sent condolences to Tatarsky’s family and friends.
Peskov said: “[This is] the regime that is behind the murder of Daria Dugina. This is the regime that is quite possibly behind the assassination of Fomin and the terrorist attack in St. Petersburg,” Peskov said. “That is why the special military operation is being carried out.” Moscow has repeatedly called its invasion of Ukraine a “special military operation.”
Ukraine has denied allegations of involvement in the murder of Dugina, the daughter of influential ultra-nationalist philosopher Alexander Dugin. She was killed in August by a bomb attached to the car she was driving near Moscow. Dugina knew Tatarsky and shared some of his outspoken, nationalistic views about the conflict. They moved in the same circles, and they had been photographed multiple times together.
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