ANTI-WAR ACTIVIST SUSPECTED IN BOMB DEATH OF RUSSIAN BLOGGER
▶ Ukraine and agents of opposition chief Navalny behind Saint Petersburg attack, Moscow says
Police in Russia have arrested an anti-war campaigner on suspicion of killing a military blogger in a bombing in Saint Petersburg.
Darya Trepova, 26, was detained by officers a day after Sunday’s explosion in a cafe killed Vladlen Tatarsky and injured more than 30 others. RT, the Russian state-controlled TV channel, broadcast an image that appeared to show the suspect handcuffed to pipes connected to a radiator.
Russia accused Ukraine of organising the murder.
The Russian Ministry of the Interior published a video purportedly of Ms Trepova admitting to taking a statuette with a bomb inside to the cafe, and saying she understood the reasons for her arrest.
When asked why, she said: “For … I’d put it this way, for being at the assassination site of Vladlen Tatarsky.
“I brought the statuette there that exploded.”
Asked on camera who gave her the device, she said she would answer “later”.
A separate video taken from CCTV shows a woman dressed in a long black coat and black boots walking into the cafe, carrying a box.
Another unverified clip released on Russian media appeared to feature Mr Tatarsky showing what looked like a bust to onlookers seated at tables.
“They put [the figurine] somewhere in the back without a second thought … and all of a sudden there was an explosion,” Alisa Smotrova, who was in the cafe, told AFP.
“There was blood and pieces of glass.”
The police were called at about 6.13pm local time on Sunday and cordoned off the street outside the building.
The blogger, 40, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, had more than 560,000 followers on Telegram and was one of the most visible pro-war commentators in Russia.
The Kremlin called the killing a “terrorist act” and quoted Russia’s Anti-Terrorism Committee in saying that there was evidence linking Ukraine to the bombing.
“We see quite vigorous steps to detain suspects,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “Let’s be patient and wait for the next announcements from our special services, which are working on this.”
Russian investigators said the Ukrainian security services and “agents” linked to opposition leader Alexei Navalny were responsible for the bombing.
“The terrorist attack was planned by Ukrainian security services with the help of agents working with the so-called Anti-Corruption Foundation,” Russia’s anti-terrorism committee said, referring to Mr Navalny’s organisation.
Mr Navalny, who survived a poisoning in August 2020 that he and western governments blamed on the Kremlin, is serving a nine-year prison sentence in Russia after being convicted of fraud and contempt of court.
Russia described his foundation as “extremist” in 2021 and outlawed the organisation, after it published investigative reports about alleged corruption among high officials.
The move was part of a crackdown on critics of President Vladimir Putin.
Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak claimed the cafe attack was the result of Russian infighting.
“[The] question of when domestic terrorism would become an instrument of internal political fight was a matter of time,” he wrote on Twitter.
Before the arrest of Ms Trepova, the Interior Ministry had identified her as a suspect and she was put on a wanted list.
Ms Trepova, a resident of Saint Petersburg, was detained for 10 days for her part in an anti-war protest on February 25 last year, Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported. The rally was held a day after Moscow invaded Ukraine.
Mr Tatarsky was born in Donbas and worked as a coal miner before establishing a furniture business.
After financial troubles, he was jailed for robbing a bank.
He fled from prison after a Russian-backed separatist rebellion in the Donbas region in 2014, weeks after Moscow announced the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.
Mr Tatarsky joined separatist forces and fought on the front line before turning to blogging.