Russia's high-profile camp of pro-war, nationalist commentators looks suddenly vulnerable after the death of one of the country's most influential military bloggers, analysts say.
The death of Vladlen Tatarsky following an explosion at a cafe in St Petersburg on Sunday has dominated headlines in Russia and beyond. The blast killed Tatarsky and injured at least 30 others, the authorities said, before detaining a woman on suspicion of involvement in what they described as a "high-profile murder."
The death also sent shockwaves through Russia's pro-war commentariat which has burgeoned since Russia invaded Ukraine over a year ago. The online community is now asking why Tatarsky was targeted, and by whom.
Tatarsky was one of Russia's more prominent and outspoken pro-war bloggers, with 572,000 followers on the popular messaging app Telegram. Unlike many others in Russia, however, Tatarsky — whose real name was Maxim Fomin — had the added kudos of having fought on the frontline in Ukraine with pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk, where he was born in 1982.
Nonetheless, Tatarsky had been critical of Russia's military command and the Ministry of Defense, putting him in the same camp as Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Russia's Wagner Group of mercenaries fighting in east Ukraine. The two had ties and were among a group of ultranationalist pro-war voices calling for more aggressive military tactics in Ukraine.
Despite criticizing some elements of Russia's military strategy, Tatarsky appeared to be moving in high circles; in one video published last September he was seen inside the Kremlin for an event marking the illegal annexation of more Ukrainian territory. Tatarsky commented to the camera: "We will defeat everyone, we will kill everyone, we will rob everyone as necessary. Just as we like it."
Unsettling ultranationalists
Tatarsky's death is the second apparent assassination of a prominent Russian pro-war commentator on home soil.
Last August, Darya Dugina — daughter of ultranationalist philosopher Aleksandr Dugin and a supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the invasion of Ukraine — was killed in a car bomb on the outskirts of Moscow. It's widely believed that her father was the intended target of the attack.
Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya told CNBC that Tatarsky's death was likely to leave Russia's "patriotic camp" — in which Dugina and Tatarsky were firmly entrenched before their deaths — feeling exposed and potentially at risk.
"They feel vulnerable, not only in front of Ukrainian possible attacks, but also in the face of Russian security services who fail, in fact, to protect them from possible such incidents," she told CNBC Monday.
"The problem is that Russia is becoming much more vulnerable to such attacks, and the authorities do not really want to increase public attention to such incidents, [but] rather to downplay it."
Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, added that ultranationalist military bloggers and commentators now want the Kremlin to double down on its aggression toward Ukraine as a result of Tatarsky's death.
"It's so shocking the way the authorities react, for them," she said. "They believe that the Kremlin should go harder on Ukraine — to investigate, to answer in the most aggressive way — but they do not see it [being done] so it makes them feel vulnerable."
Sending a message to milbloggers?
Russian investigators responded quickly following Tatarsky's death and within hours had detained a woman called Darya Trepova, reputed to be an anti-war campaigner. The interior ministry released a video in which Trepova was seen being questioned about the incident, although her husband Dmitry Rylov has since said he believes his wife has been framed.
On Monday, the Kremlin described the bombing as a "terrorist act," and said it would be tightening security measures ahead of its annual Victory Day military parade next month. Russia's National Anti-terrorism Committee accused Ukraine's special services of playing a role in the plan to kill Tatarsky, claiming Ukraine had collaborated with the Anti-Corruption Foundation, a campaign group set up by jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and since banned by Russia.
But political and defense analysts note that Russia could potentially be behind the killing, given the growing tensions between its political establishment and the blogosphere over the country's military tactics.
In recent months, that antagonism has become increasingly public with Prigozhin claiming that the military's refusal to supply ammunition to his mercenary fighters battling in Donetsk could be "treason."
In fact, Tatarsky was killed in a bar that belonged to Prigozhin and some analysts are questioning whether the bombing was intended as a sign that Putin's tolerance of criticism of the military operation is over.
"Fomin's [Tatarsky's] assassination could be evidence that Putin's tolerance toward these milbloggers, in general, is waning, but it could also have resulted instead from Fomin's [Tatarsky's] proximity to Prigozhin," analysts at the Institute for the Study of War noted Sunday.
The ISW said that Tatarsky shared his ideology and activities with many other Russian milbloggers and so there was no reason for Kyiv to have singled him out as a "target worthy of special attention."
For Russia, however, his "assassination at Prigozhin's bar is likely part of a larger pattern of escalating Russian internal conflicts involving Prigozhin and Wagner," the ISW said.
Ukrainian presidential advisor, Mikhailo Podolyak, agreed that the explosion reflected internal political strife in Russia, noting that "spiders are eating each other in a jar" and that it had always been a matter of time before domestic terrorism became "an instrument of internal political fight."
CNBC contacted the Kremlin for a response to the comments, as well as the Ukrainian government following Moscow's accusations that it was involved in Tatarsky's death, and is awaiting responses.
On Monday, Ukraine's President Zelenskyy said he was "not thinking about what is going on in St Petersburg or in Moscow," adding that "Russia has to think about their cities. I am thinking about our country and our cities."