[5] Fomin was pardoned by Alexander Zakharchenko, the head of the Donetsk People's Republic, and was given the opportunity to fight against the Ukrainian army alongside the Vostok Battalion during the war in Donbas.

[8] Tatarsky was a prominent figure among the Russian military bloggers, a group known for their uncompromising support of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

[3] The popularity of his Telegram channel significantly increased after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, reaching over 560,000 by the time of his assassination.

[9] Tatarsky was known for his hardline views, criticising Russian military commanders and Vladimir Putin for being too soft in their approach.

[4] In 2016 and 2017, Tatarsky's blogging was mostly interviews with field commanders and events on the front line, where he quite openly wrote about alcohol and drug abuse as well as looting among Russian soldiers in Donbas.

The video was recorded at the Kremlin, to which Tatarsky had been invited to attend Putin's announcement of "partial mobilization" on 30 September 2022.

[15] On 2 April 2023, Tatarsky was killed in an explosion while attending an event hosted at a café in Saint Petersburg as a guest speaker.

[16] The café was reportedly owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman with close ties to the Kremlin and head of the paramilitary Wagner Group.

[22][23] Following the incident, Margarita Simonyan, Tina Kandelaki, and Anton Krasovsky blamed Ukraine for the attack and called for retaliation.