One person has died and at least 16 people have been injured in a blast in a cafe in St Petersburg, Russia.

Well-known Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky died in the explosion, the Russian interior ministry said.

Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, had more than 560,000 followers on Telegram and was one of the most prominent of the influential military bloggers who have provided an often critical running commentary on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

There has been no indication who was responsible for the blast at the “Street Bar” cafe in Russia’s second largest city.

Russia media and military bloggers said Tatarsky was meeting with members of the public and that a woman presented him with a statuette that apparently exploded.

If Tatarsky was deliberately targeted it would be the second assassination on Russian soil of a figure associated with the war in Ukraine.