Tatarsky's death in St. Petersburg is power structures' confrontation in Russia - military expert Kovalenko

The military-political observer commented on Espreso on the death of propagandist Vladlen Tatarsky in a coffee shop explosion on April 2 in St. Petersburg.

“In my opinion, this is a more intra-agency confrontation between representatives of the Russian security forces. There is a certain pool of Russian military propagandists who are under the patronage of the Russian Defense Ministry. For example, Komsomolskaya Pravda is fully managed by the Russian Defense Ministry, but since the second half of 2022, this publishing house has been constantly criticizing the ministry and supporting the Wagner PMC and Yevgeny Prigozhin. The bombing of Tatarsky is a signal to other propaganda correspondents not to support the Wagner PMC, which is a security structure and a branch of the FSB,” the military expert explained.

Oleksandr Kovalenko noted that at this time, the Russian Ministry of Defense is unable to integrate its PMCs, such as Redoubt and Patriot, into the combat zone and provide them with appropriate PR.

“From the very beginning, this Vladlen Tatarsky was under the leadership of the Russian Armed Forces' General Staff, that is, relatively speaking, the GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate - ed.), which is a branch of the Russian Ministry of Defense. But it was in 2022 that Tatarsky began to support Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose Wagner PMC is a security branch of the FSB. Since these are two competing offices, we conclude that Tatarsky was removed for criticizing Sergei Shoigu, because you shouldn't bite the hand that has been feeding you all these years,” Kovalenko summarized.

• On April 2, an explosion occurred on Universitetskaya Embankment in St. Petersburg at a 'recital' of propagandist Vladlen Tatarsky, injuring 32 people.