In connection with the explosion that killed war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky on Sunday, a Russian lady has appeared in court and been charged with terrorism.
It is alleged that Daria Trepova gave the pro-Kremlin writer the explosive that caused his death and the injuries of 32 other people at a St. Petersburg cafe.
She was taken into custody yesterday after being taken into custody by the FSB and Investigative Committee.
Prior to her arrest, there were rumors that she had been “on the run,” and pro-state media outlet Shoot reported that when she was arrested, her first words were “I was set up.”
Just being used of me.
Footage from a street in Russia’s second-largest city allegedly shows Trepova, 26, carrying a box towards the cafe where the explosion later happened.
Tatarsky, who had more than 560,000 followers on Telegram and was one of the most prominent bloggers reporting on the conflict in Ukraine, is said to have been handed a gold bust by a woman.
Russian news reports suggest the statuette depicted Tatarsky himself, and hid the bomb inside.
Authorities said 10 of the 32 people who were injured in the blast are in a critical condition.
Suspected Daria Trepova entering cafe with a box
Talking to Russian site SVTV News, Trepova’s husband Dmitry Rylov acknowledged she was against the war in Ukraine but said ‘she would never kill’ and that she was ‘framed’.
He is reported to have said: ‘I am 100% sure that she would never have agreed to such a thing if she had known.’
A video appearing to show Trepova confessing was released by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, but the circumstances in which it was filmed are unknown.
Her flat has been searched and some reports say her mother was arrested.
A second suspect was earlier named as Maria Yarun, 40, who was born in Ukraine and is said to be in hospital in St Petersburg.
St Petersburg restaurant explosion kills military blogger
Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, previously appeared in a video vowing the destruction of Ukraine, which has faced devastation since Vladimir Putin’s troops invaded last February.
‘We’ll conquer everyone, we’ll kill everyone’, he boasted. ‘We’ll loot whoever we need to, and everything will be just as we like it.’