MOSCOW, April 3. /TASS/. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner private military company, has confirmed his affiliation with a St. Petersburg cafe where war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky was killed in an explosion on Sunday.
"Right now I don’t know the details of the incident, I was only told that, unfortunately, Vladlen Tatarsky was killed. I am unaware of any other details. Indeed, I handed over the cafe to the Cyber Front Z patriotic movement and they held various seminars there. Most likely, this tragedy happened during a seminar," he said as quoted by the Telegram channel of his press service.
Prigozhin noted that the incident shared certain similarities with the murder of journalist Darya Dugina. "Yet I would not accuse the Kiev regime of these actions. I think that a group of radicals is operating which is unlikely to have connections with the government, this is how I would describe this," he concluded.
A blast occurred in Streetfood-Bar No 1 on Universitetskaya Embankment in central St. Petersburg on Sunday evening. One person, war reporter Vladlen Tatarsky who held an event there, was killed, and 30 people were injured. According to preliminary data, an explosive device with a yield of more than 200 grams of TNT went off near the stage. A criminal case on murder charges was opened.