Russian Exile Who Vowed to ‘Finish’ Putin Claims Link to Deadly Café Bomb

Russian exile and former parliament member Ilya Ponomarev, who once threatened to “finish off” Vladimir Putin from abroad, has claimed that the bomb that killed a prominent military blogger in a café in St. Petersburg is the work of Russian partisan rebels he has been cooperating with.

“I know the people who organized the murder of Tatarsky, I had known about the preparations for the attack in advance,” Ponomarev told The Daily Beast in an exclusive interview on Monday. “I welcome such actions… they eliminate war criminals and their aides.”

Ponomarev—who said he was offering “financial and political” support to the alleged Russian partisans who masterminded the bombing that killed pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky on Sunday—first made headlines in August 22, when he claimed that the same network of Russian rebels were responsible for the car bomb that killed Darya Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian nationalist.

Read more at The Daily Beast.