Who blew up Vladlen Tatarsky? The killing of a pre-war blogger could be Putin’s message to Wagner boss Yevgeny Prighozin, the start of a Russian resistance movement – or another daring Ukrainian operation

Vladlen Tatarsky was a man of many enemies.

He was hated by millions of Ukrainians for video telling them they should all be killed and robbed, earning him a hard-liner reputation even in the ultra-nationalist world of Russian military bloggers.

Then there was the Russian government and leading generals whom he openly blamed for the failed war effort and called for their dismissal and prosecution.

Other enemies lurked in the shadows: perhaps from his days as a bank robber in the Ukraine, when he went by the name Maxim Fomin; perhaps pro-Ukrainian dissidents in Russia; or perhaps enemies of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was one of Tatarsky’s few allies.

Whoever they were, they found their destination on Sunday.

A bomb hidden in a golden bust of the 40-year-old propagandist exploded during one of his lectures in St. Petersburg exploded, injuring 30 people and leaving a big question unanswered: who knows?

Officially, the blame is laid on 26-year-old Daria Trepova – a well-known dissident who was filmed handing over the statue to Tatarsky just before it exploded.

READ MORE: Who was Vladlen Tatarsky and who is his ‘hit man’ Daria Trepova? Putin’s war propagandist jailed for bank robbery, and the anti-war activist accused of killing him

She confessed on camera after her arrest, but notably did not admit that she knew the arrest was a bomb and said nothing about who gave it to her.

Those who knew Trepova say she was incapable of murder, and even Russian investigators doubt she was the mastermind.

Perhaps not surprisingly, immediate suspicion fell on Ukraine.

The attack on Tatarsky coincides with a bomb blast that killed Daria Dugina, daughter of pro-war propagandist Alexander Dugin, in a suburb of Moscow last year.

In both cases, the intended target was a vocal supporter of Putin’s invasion – even if the blast intended for Dugin ended up killing his daughter.

In both cases, the attack was carried out by a female assassin who planted explosives – in Dugina’s case it was hidden in a car her father was supposed to be driving.

And in the Dugin case, a CIA official unofficially said they believed Ukrainian intelligence was behind it.

It goes without saying that Ukraine would also be suspected of Tatarsky’s murder.

Kiev has predictably denied any involvement, but Ukrainians are not the only ones to voice such denials.

Prigozhin himself wrote a telegram entry in which he doubted that the “Kiev regime” was behind the murder, blaming instead “a group of radicals … who probably have no connection whatsoever with the government”.

It is significant that he did not say which government he was referring to: the one in Kiev or the one in Moscow.

There are many who believe that the Russian state itself is responsible for the explosion and are looking for a voice that will increasingly criticize its mistakes on the battlefield.

Tatarsky has attacked almost every senior leader, including Putin, over the way the war is being waged – and it’s no secret that criticism of the Russian leader doesn’t last long.

But any number of powerful military figures with easy access to explosives could be responsible: from Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to General Valery Gerasimov.

American think tank The Institute for the Study of War believes the attack served a dual purpose, both to silence Tatarsky and to send a message to ally Prigozhin.

Officially, the blame lies with 26-year-old Daria Trepova (pictured) – a well-known dissident who was filmed handing Tatarsky the statue just before it exploded

American think tank The Institute for the Study of War believes the attack served a dual purpose, both to silence Tatarsky and to send a message to ally Yevgeny Prigozhin (pictured).

Wagner’s boss was critical of the Russian regular army – at one stage calling Gerasimov a “fa****” – and grew bolder with each victory his mercenaries achieved.

READ MORE: Cold-blooded killer or victim of insidious Putin conspiracy? Russian anti-war activist filmed donating explosive statue to pro-Putin blogger – but was it framed in lavish FSB hit?

But he seems to have fallen out of favor lately, and Tatarsky’s assassination was perhaps intended as the strongest warning to get back in line.

It certainly seems worth noting that St. Petersburg is Prigozhin’s birthplace and that the cafe where Tatarsky died is owned by Prigozhin – a fact that seems coincidental, except that earlier on the same day he attended a similar event at a similar event, very fond of Cafe and walked away unharmed.

Another possibility is that dissidents in Russia planned the assassination, either out of hatred for Putin or out of solidarity with Ukraine – or both.

Ilya Ponomarev, a former Russian MP now in exile in Ukraine, claimed that a group he is in contact with in his home country carried out the bombing.

He told the Daily Beast that he was “informed in advance about the preparations for the attack” and supported the organizers “financially and politically”.

Ponomarev did not name those responsible, instead claiming links to the National Republican Army – a group of anti-Putin operatives he blamed for Dugina’s assassination last August.

US and German officials have also accused a pro-Ukraine group, which is not affiliated with the government but may be linked to Russia, of blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines.

Meanwhile, Ukraine blamed dissidents within Putin’s own ranks for a cross-border attack on Russia’s Bryansk region in which two civilians were attacked and bombs were planted.

If such groups exist, it seems well within their power to carry out a bombing in a major city.

There are also many skeletons in Tatarsky’s closet from his colorful past, one of which may have used his newfound fame to target him.

Before he became a pro-Russian war blogger, he was a Donbass Ukrainian criminal named Maxim Fomin, who was jailed for bank robberies shortly before Putin’s first invasion in 2014.

When pro-Russian groups, instigated by Igor Girkin, started a proxy war in Donbass, Tatarski claims he escaped from prison and joined their ranks to fight against his homeland.

After that war stalled, he traveled to Moscow, where he reinvented himself as a blogger and writer, returning to eastern Ukraine in early 2022, just before Putin invaded a second time.

In addition to documenting the war and spreading pro-Kremlin narratives, Tatarsky claims to have been actively involved in the fighting, including in the city of Mariupol.

However, he reportedly despised Girkin and was ridiculed by fellow war bloggers for exaggerating his military service, any of whom could have preferred revenge for his alleged “stolen courage”.

Russia even tried to blame Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who accused his political party of involvement.

The immediate suspicion of who was behind the bombing fell on Ukraine. In the photo: Ukrainian special forces are seen during exercises in 2019

Pictured: Russian investigators search the cafe where Tatarsky was killed and 32 others wounded in a bomb attack on Sunday

This theory has been widely rejected, not least by the Navalny movement itself, but is likely to be used by an increasingly paranoid Kremlin as a pretext for a crackdown on dissent.

And it will almost certainly be used by Putin and his allies to portray Russia as a state under threat – from enemies outside as well as enemies within.

It is a sign of how intimately involved Putin and Russia are in this conflict that a bombing in Russia’s second largest city could have been carried out by so many people.

A war that Putin hoped would end in a bloodless victory in a few days is drawing closer.