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[martinuzz]

The café in st. Petersburg was once owned by Wagner's leader Jevgeni Prigozjin.
Could have been rebels, could have been an angry Russian Defense minister, could have been Ukraine, could have been disgruntled Wagner mercs, could have been anyone.
Take your pick.

[Starver]

Take your pick.

Thats so Trotskyish...

[Egan_BW]

Uh, that's terrorism, though.

I don't think bombing cafés is a good development.

Not great, but this war is no stranger to blowing up civilians for effectively no reason or gain. So this doesn't strike me as particularly new.

[brewer bob]

Do we even know it was Russian rebels? For all we know Putin could have organized it explicitly for propaganda, its not beyond him.

The FSB was what came first into my mind. Haven't several pro-war bloggers been criticizing Putin quite a bit?

Uh, that's terrorism, though.

I don't think bombing cafés is a good development.

Not great, but this war is no stranger to blowing up civilians for effectively no reason or gain. So this doesn't strike me as particularly new.

Yeah. They're in war and civilians are being bombed in that war. Not really that different from Ukrainian civilians being blown up by Russia. Though some tweets claimed there was a pro-war event or something in the café with the guy speaking (no idea if true, nor does it make it anymore justified to bomb civilians, but neither am I shedding tears if they were pro-war).

[hector13]

According to the BBC the bomb was in a statue that was presented to him at the event.

As martinuzz said, it was at a cafe formerly owned by Prigozhin, in Putin’s home city. Chances are this was for him being critical of the war effort, not by Ukraine, ‘cause they gain nothing from it, militarily or otherwise.

[brewer bob]

A bomb in a statue seems more like someone else than rebels/partisans.

[EuchreJack]

Isn't this the second Wagner hangout that got bombed?

[MorleyDev]

Sounds like the Cafe was hosting an event for a pro-Russian 'Cyber' group at the time.

"Cyber Front Z, a group calling itself "Russia's information troops" on Telegram, said it had hired out the cafe for the evening.

- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65155075

From what Google says, they're basically a Russian Troll Farm. Honestly not surprising this kind of targetting would happen when Russia has gone out of it's way to blur away the line between official government propagandists and civilians...

[Strongpoint]

Do we even know it was Russian rebels? For all we know Putin could have organized it explicitly for propaganda, its not beyond him.

Especially as a bombing. If you wanted one guy in one cafe rebels would hurt their own image less by knifing or shooting him.

He wasn't just sitting in a cafe with a bunch of random people. It was an event with his fans who came to see him. Those people shared his views and consider war to be a good thing and I love that they got a little taste of what war really is.

[Eric Blank]

Ah, i see. Thats understandable really

[EuchreJack]

He was a bank robber that was rising in the Russian political scene. Ok, I'm glad they killed Future Stalin.

[King Zultan]

In the end we're probably never gonna know who was behind it, but in the end it doesn't really matter since it isn't that big a deal that a bunch of pro-Putin dicks are dead.

[jipehog]

Fomin was one of the most significant Russian milbloggers with a Telegram platform of 560,000 followers and deep connections with the Wagner Group, the Kremlin, the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), and the Russian nationalists who have been dominating the Russian information space since the start of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Fomin’s assassination at a Wagner-affiliated bar in St. Petersburg may reveal further fractures within the Kremlin and its inner circle. Fomin was a vocal critic of the Russian military command and the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD). Fomin’s death marks the first high-profile assassination of an ultranationalist milblogger in Russia since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-2-2023

[martinuzz]

My bet is on the Kremlin was behind it, for all his criticism of military command

[Strongpoint]

Yeah, he was from the category of "military bloggers" who are not only fully supporting the war and advocating for genocide but also call Russian generals morons and traitors who should be punished for failures.

Strelkov-Girkin may be next. I am amazed that he is still alive.