A woman has been detained in the murder of a well-known Russian military blogger who was killed by a bomb blast at a cafe in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

The high-profile writer Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, died in the explosion while attending a public event at the cafe on Sunday. At least 30 others were injured in the attack, several of whom were hospitalized in critical condition. 

Russia's Investigative Committee announced on Sunday that the suspect, Darya Trepova, had been taken into custody on suspicion of involvement in what it described as a "high-profile murder." Trepova, a 26-year-old Russian citizen, had previously been detained for protesting against the war in Ukraine, the state news agency TASS said.

TASS also suggested Trepova may have approached Tatarsky at Sunday's cafe event and given him a statue as a gift which was packed with the explosives that killed him.

Despite Trepova's arrest, it was not immediately clear who was responsible for the killing, in what appears to be the second assassination of a figure closely associated with the conflict on Russian soil.

The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said on Sunday he would "not blame the Kyiv regime" for it, but other leading Russian officials and political figures have suggested – without providing evidence – that Ukraine was involved in the attack. 

"He was killed vilely. Terrorists cannot do otherwise," said Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-backed leader of the part of Ukraine's Donetsk province controlled by Russia. "The Kyiv regime is a terrorist regime. It needs to be destroyed, there's no other way to stop it."

Russia's National Anti-terrorism Committee on Monday accused Ukrainian intelligence services of being behind Tatarsky's death.

The Kremlin described the killing as a "terrorist act", citing the Committee's report of evidence linking Ukraine to the assassination.

Kyiv has not claimed responsibility for the attack, with Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak saying the killing showed "domestic terrorism" was breaking out in Russia.

"The spiders are eating each other in a jar," he wrote on Twitter.

Russia's foreign ministry said the absence of reaction in Washington, London and Paris "speaks for itself, given their ostensible concern for the well-being of journalists and freedom of expression."

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Tatarsky, who was born in Ukraine's Donetsk region, was one of Russia's most prominent military bloggers to support Moscow's war effort.

With more than 560,000 followers on Telegram, he was known for fighting in both the Ukraine conflict of 2014 and its recent escalation, as well as for his open criticism of Russia's top army officials. 

The blogger gained particular notoriety after posting a video last September from inside the Kremlin where he said: "We'll defeat everyone, we'll kill everyone, we'll rob everyone we need to. Everything will be as we like it." 

He was at a ceremony where President Vladimir Putin claimed four partly occupied regions of Ukraine as Russian territory – a move rejected as illegal by most countries.

On Sunday, Tatarsky had been a guest speaker at an event organized by an ultra-nationalist group called "Cyber Z Front" at Saint Petersburg's Street Food Bar No 1 along the Neva river. 

The cafe was previously owned by the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who Tatarsky had direct links with. 

According to official sources quoted by Russian state media, Tatarsky was presented with a helmeted statue in a box, which had a bomb hidden inside. Video circulating on Telegram after the blast showed him being handed the statue and making jokes about it.

Tatarsky's death followed the killing last August of Darya Dugina, the daughter of a prominent ultra-nationalist, in a car-bomb attack near Moscow. Russia's Federal Security Service at the time accused Ukraine's secret services of carrying out that attack, which Putin called "evil." Ukraine denied involvement.

Tatarsky was one of Russia's many war bloggers, a collection of correspondents and commentators with military backgrounds who have enjoyed broad freedom to publish hard-hitting views on the war including heavy criticism of Russian army officials.

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