Apparent bomb attack against Food Not Bombs in St. Petersburg, Russia

russia / ukraine / belarus | anti-fascism | other libertarian press

Tuesday February 06, 2007 16:45

by via alter-ee

Yesterday, 4th February, a small bomb with a timing device exploded at 4.20pm in Vladimirskaya Square in St. Petersburg, where Food Not Bombs is organised every Sunday by different rotating groups.

The bomb was hidden in a kiosk selling flowers but as the device was small it just damaged the kiosk and nobody was hurt. Obviously, the purpose of the bomb was not to kill but to terrorize.

Luckily that day Food Not Bombs was running behind schedule and activists showed up at the spot a few minutes after the explosion, and food was given to the homeless without any problems. Usually, 4.20 would be the moment when most people gather in the square for food.

At the time of the action, activists did not pay much attention to damage, considering the timing to be a coincidence - it could have been some conflict between organised crime gangs, for example. But when later in the day it was revealed that the bomb had been set with a timing device, people realized that Food Not Bombs may have been targeted on purpose. Russian nazis have used explosives quite often, the last time in Moscow on 22nd December whjen a bomb was set against local anti-fascists and injured a number of policemen who were attempting to neutralise the device. Last August in Moscow a bomb set by nazis killed 11 in Cherkisovski marketplace. Nazis have often targeted Food Not Bombs in St. Petersburg: on 14th January 2007 activist Ivan Elin suffered 20 stab wounds when returning home from an action, but he is recovering. On 13th November 2005 another Food Not Bombs activist, Timur Kacharava, was murdered a few hours after an action.

At http://anatrrra.livejournal.com/22099.html you can see photos from the site of the explosion. If you have a blog, please post this link there as it helps to increase the rating of the article. Anatrrra is also criticizing a pro-police St. Petersburg internet publication, fontanka.ru, for publishing the wrong time of the explosion, 7.30, suspecting that they did this on purpose. A correspondent of the site denies this in the comment section of the article.

[from alter-ee, edited by anarkismo.net]