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An explosion on the stretch between the Tekhnologichesky Institute and Sennaya Ploshchad stations occurred around 2:40 p.m.; another explosive device, at Ploshchad Vosstaniya, was discovered 10–15 minutes earlier (according to other sources, later). Just at this time, Vladimir Putin was finishing his conversation with journalists at the ONF media forum “Truth and Justice.” Does it make sense to link these events?

Putin traditionally attends St. Petersburg media forums; this year he came to talk with the pro-government press for the fourth time. The forum participants knew about his arrival in advance; they even installed a transparent cube at the entrance to the hall to collect questions for the president. This means that if the criminals wanted to strike at the moment when Putin would speak publicly in St. Petersburg, they could well be preparing a terrorist attack specifically for the media forum. All they had to do was follow the TV news to find out the exact day of his arrival. Although the place of his speech was kept secret until the last moment - journalists were gathered on buses near the Moskovskaya metro station that day, without warning where they would be taken.

Did it make sense for terrorists to become attached to Putin’s arrival? Of course: if the goal of a terrorist attack is to intimidate as many people as possible, then Putin’s presence nearby, and most importantly, the explosion in his hometown during his visit, works for the criminals. And the task of showing that the bombs were exploding ever closer to him was completed.

If they had calculated the timing better and the terrorist attack had happened not after, but during Putin’s meeting with journalists, the effect would have been even stronger: his first reaction to the news could have appeared live. But the explosion happened a little later. The President, as usual, was an hour late, and the meeting was cut in half. “We cannot make Alexander Grigoryevich (Lukashenko, President of Belarus - Ed.) wait long,” the president apologized and ended the conversation.

After this, some observers tried to find a connection between Putin’s meeting with Lukashenko and the explosion. Allegedly, this was done specifically to counteract the union of Russia and Belarus.

The version is quite exotic, primarily because it is unclear how a terrorist attack could prevent the two presidents from agreeing on anything - on the contrary, such tragedies usually become a unifying factor.

Officials' position on the cause of the explosion changed several times. Putin himself said that “all versions” are being considered, including domestic, criminal and terrorist attacks. An hour later, the representative of the Prosecutor General's Office, Alexander Kurennoy, called the explosions a terrorist attack. But some time later he corrected himself, clarifying that “it is premature to draw conclusions.”

Closer to midnight, the president arrived at a spontaneous memorial at the Technological Institute station, where he laid a bouquet of red carnations to the sound of film and photo cameras. The journalist’s loud question: “Vladimir Vladimirovich, what happened?” – he ignored.