Who is behind the murder of Putin’s propagandist?

Those who live by hate often die by hate, too. Maxim Fomin, better known as Vladlen Tatarsky, was one of the ultra-nationalist social media ‘milbloggers’ who emerged largely off the back of Russia’s war on Ukraine. On Sunday evening, he was addressing a gathering at a cafe in St Petersburg when he was killed by a bomb that also injured another 16 people.

Fomin came from Makiivka, in the contested Donetsk region. In 2014, on escaping from prison where he was serving time for a bank robbery, he joined the pro-Russian Vostok Battalion. He would go on to become amongst the more famous ‘milbloggers’, whose Telegram channel had over 560,000 followers. He used his status to raise money to buy equipment for Vostok and other units (including the neo-fascist Rusich) and also, increasingly, to echo the outspoken claims of Yevgeny Prigozhin, manager of the Wagner mercenary army.

A month ago, for example, he interviewed Prigozhin, giving him a platform to reiterate his complaints that the Defence Ministry wasn’t giving Wagner enough ammunition.