Long jail term eyed in cases linked to war

A Russian court in Siberia on Friday sentenced a man to 19 years in prison for shooting a military enlistment officer, while prosecutors in St. Petersburg asked for a 28-year sentence for a woman charged in the bombing of a cafe last April that killed a prominent military blogger, reports said.

Both cases underscore the tensions in the Russian society heightened by President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, with some of those opposing it turning to violent acts.

In the Siberian city of Irkutsk, 26-year-old timber truck driver Ruslan Zinin was sentenced Friday to 19 years after opening fire in September 2022 at the military enlistment office in Ust-ilimsk, the staterun Tass news agency reported.

The shooting came a few days after Putin ordered a partial military mobilization to boost his forces fighting in Ukraine, sparking rare protests across Russia that were shut down, sometimes brutally.

Zinin reportedly walked into the enlistment office, saying that “no one will go to fight” and opened fire, seriously wounding an officer.

In St. Petersburg, Tass said prosecutors on Friday asked for a 28-year sentence for Darya Trepova, 26, over the cafe bombing that killed Vladlen Tatarsky, a pro-war military blogger who regularly reported from the front lines in Ukraine.

Trepova was arrested after being seen in a video presenting Tatarsky with a bust of himself, moments before the explosion at a riverside cafe where he was leading a discussion. The blast killed him and wounded 50 others.

She later claimed in court that she didn’t know the bust contained a bomb, according to reports in Russian media, and said she was acting upon instructions from two men who told her there was a listening and tracking device inside.