A young Russian woman called Darya Trepova is on trial for the terrorist attack that killed a prominent military blogger by blowing him up with a ‘gift bomb’ at Ukraine’s behest.
Russian state prosecutors are asking for 28 years in prison for Trepova.
Reuters reported:
“Pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was killed by a bomb hidden in a figurine that Trepova, 26, gave him at a cafe in St Petersburg where he was giving a talk to an audience of up to 100 people in April last year.
The figurine was a crude likeness of Tatarsky, who accepted it as a gift. Witnesses told the court that he had jokingly called it ‘Golden Vladlen’ and turned it over in his hands before it had exploded, killing him on the spot and injuring dozens.
At the last court hearing on Jan. 16, Trepova told the court that she had believed that the package she handed to him had contained a listening device, not a bomb.”
Trepova has testified that she was acting under orders from a man in Ukraine.
She knew him only as ‘Gestalt’ (German for ‘Shape’), and he had been sending her money and instructions for several months before the bombing in the Saint Petersburg cafe.
Associated Press reported:
“Russian authorities have blamed Ukrainian intelligence agencies for orchestrating the bombing. Kyiv has not directly responded to the accusation, but an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has described the bombing as part of Russia’s internal turmoil.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, charged that a Ukrainian citizen identified as Yuriy Denysov had supplied Trepova with explosives through a courier service, acting on orders from the Ukrainian security services.”
“Tatarsky was the pen name of Maxim Fomin, who had hundreds of thousands of followers on his Telegram messaging app channel. He had joined separatists in eastern Ukraine after a Moscow-backed insurgency erupted there in 2014 and fought on the front lines for years before turning to blogging.
Military bloggers have played an increasingly prominent role in Russia amid the fighting in Ukraine, supporting the Kremlin but often criticizing Russia’s military leadership for perceived flaws. Unlike independent media or opposition figures, they have not faced punishment for that criticism.”