Thirty-seven-year-old Russian woman imprisoned over café bomb killing

Darya Trepova, a woman from Russia, has been given a 27-year prison sentence for killing pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in April.

Tatarsky was murdered by a bomb hidden in a statue Trepova gave him, just as he was getting ready to speak in St. Petersburg Many people got hurt in the explosion.

Trepova, who is 26 years old, said she didn’t do it and thought the small statue had a listening device inside.

She said she did what a Ukrainian told her to do, and she was tricked.

The punishment given to the woman in Russia is one of the harshest in their history.

Maxim Fomin, also known as Tatarsky, was attacked on April 2, 2023.

Trepova was accused of being involved in a group that caused a terrorist attack resulting in intentional deaths, and of having illegal explosive devices with the group.

Russian investigators say Ukraine did the attack, but Ukrainian officials haven’t said if it’s true or not.

But Trepova said in court that she was doing what a man in Ukraine named Gestalt told her to do. We do not know who he is.

She said she talked to him through Ukrainian journalist Roman Popkov. She does not support Russia’s war in Ukraine and wants to go there to work as a journalist.

Trepova said that she followed Gestalt’s advice and was able to make Tatarsky trust her by pretending to be an art student named Anastasia Kriulina and going to his talks.

In March, Gestalt sent her a small statue and told her it had a listening device and a tracking device inside. She said she was worried that it could have a bomb inside.

“I’m really sorry that I was so easily tricked and didn’t realize the problems it would cause. ” “I didn’t want to harm anyone,” Trepova said in court this week, according to Reuters.

“I feel really bad and embarrassed that I did a terrorist act myself. ”

Tatarsky was a popular blogger who had over 500,000 followers, but he also had a history of committing crimes.

He is from eastern Ukraine and he said he became part of the separatists supported by Russia after they let him out of jail. He was in jail for robbing with a weapon.

He was in a group of military bloggers who support the Russian government, and they have become more well-known since Russia started invading Ukraine in February 2022.

Tatarsky was one of the people who criticized the Russian government, especially the military and President Vladimir Putin, for their failures in the war.

But even though he had passed away, Mr. Putin gave him the Order of Courage as an award.

Trepova has been sentenced, after another pro-war figure Igor Girkin was also sentenced to jail for promoting extremist activities.