A pro-Putin blogger has been assassinated after being handed a homemade bomb disguised as a statue while he gave a talk in a packed Russian cafe.
Well-known Russian military blogger, Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, died in the blast which left four fighting for their life and injured a total of 25 people.
Reports say 19 people were taken to hospital as a result of the blast.
Law enforcement agents told Russian news agency TASS that "an improvised explosive device that went off in a cafe in St Petersburg was stuffed with submunitions."
Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, had well-over 560,000 followers on Telegram. Reports indicate he was meeting with members of the public at an event attended by around 100 people at the time of the attack.
An improvised device the "size of a bar of soap" was blown up near the stage in the Street Bar cafe.
An eyewitness said: "Suddenly the explosive wave erupted, smoke was everywhere, and people ran.
“I ran out into the street.
“When I went back to look for my phone, I saw three or four lying on the floor.”
The cafe is reportedly owned by Russian oligarch and Vladimir Putin crony Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group paramilitary organisation.
Several hours before the explosion, Tatarsky praised advertising hoardings in Moscow seeking recruits for Wagner fighters.
“It's nice to see such outdoor advertising,” he said.
A video showed the moment Tatarskiy was presented with the gold-coloured figurine - which appeared to depict the war propagandist.
Reports from interior sources cited by Russia's RIA news agency said the bomb was hidden in a statue presented to the blogger as a gift. He was allegedly handed the figurine by an unnamed woman in a cafe in the city.
Tatarsky held it and gazed at it approvingly, moments before the explosion which killed him.
Another eyewitness said: ”There were about 100 people. A [woman called] Nastya was sitting at a table."
She said she was an artist and wanted to show the heroes of Putin’s special military operation.
She purportedly told Tatarsky: “It’s not easy. That's why I've only made your bust so far. It's in the coat wardrobe [at the entrance of the cafe].”
The eyewitness said: “She went there, took a big box, and gave it to him. It was gilded.
“He said thank you and put it next to him. She sat down in her place, and three minutes later there was an explosion.
“Everyone was running. This Nastya did not seem to have left in advance."
Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov reported: "According to eyewitnesses, a female approached Fomin and gave him a figurine, which exploded in his hands.
"Fomin was killed on the spot."
BAZA media reported that the explosion was radio-activated and this triggered the explosion in the plaster figurine.
The blogger had reported from the frontline in Ukraine and Russian state news Russia Today said he joined Russian militias in the Donbas in 2014.
Tatarsky said in the Kremlin last year: "We will defeat everyone, we will kill everyone, we will rob everyone as necessary.
"Just as we like it."
The TASS source added: "The improvised explosive device was hidden in a figurine that was presented to war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky, after which it went off."
The figurine was made of gypsum which made it hard to detect explosives, it was reported.
Russia’s Interior Ministry said everyone at the cafe at the time of the blast was being “checked for involvement”.
Military analyst Sean Bell told Sky News it is "unlikely" the Ukrainian military was behind the explosion.
He said: "It could have been the resistance movement, much more likely. As rising Russian casualties from the war in Ukraine there's increasing domestic unrest back at home."
One of President Zelensky's advisers, Mykhailo Podolyak, claimed that the explosions was caused by "domestic terrorism" and that the "spiders are eating each other in a jar."
It is not yet known who is behind the explosion.
Despite this, Podolyak said: "It begins in RF [Russian Federation]... 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, as breakthrough of ripe abscess. Irreversible processes and Troubles 2.0. await RF. While we will watch"
Telegram group Cyber Frotn Z said it had hired the venue for the evening and was targeted by a "terrorist attack."
They said: "There was a terrorist attack. We took certain security measures but unfortunately they were not enough,
"Condolences to everyone who knew the excellent war correspondent and our friend Vladlen Tatarsky."
Putin zealot Alexander Dugin - whose daughter Darya Dugina was killed in a bomb explosion - posted a picture of his daughter with TatarskIy and wrote: "This is how the history of real Russian saints is created. Real. Not fictitious. Not sucked from the finger. Beating from the heart. If it is not holiness, then there is no holiness".
Tatarsky's cheerleading of the war led to him using phrases claiming "a Ukrainian is a Russian who got mentally sick."
Butusov added that Tatarsky is a former citizen of Ukraine who was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2011 for the armed robbery of a bank in the Donbas.
He said he was released in 2014 to fight against Ukraine in the region
He said in a video in October: "The future of Ukraine, those people who live there, is that they are Russian people and they will return to their normal state.
“When we win in Ukraine, the future of these people is that they are Russian people who recovered from their craziness, their spiritual transvestism, and returned to their normal state."
Maligned Russian president Putin claims Ukraine is culturally Russian.
