Russia accused Ukraine and a group linked to anti-Kremlin opposition leader Alexey Navalny of plotting a bomb explosion in a St. Petersburg cafe that killed a pro-war military blogger.
Law enforcement agents in the city detained a female suspect, Darya Trepova, on suspicion of involvement on Monday. Russia’s National Antiterrorism Committee blamed Ukrainian security services for the blast together with “persons cooperating with the so-called Navalny Anti-Corruption Fund of which the detained Trepova is an active supporter,” in a statement on its website.
Sunday’s explosion killed Maxim Fomin, whose Telegram channel under the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarsky had more than 570,000 followers, and injured 32 other people, Russian state media reported. He had become widely known since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February last year, advocating strongly for goals that included the complete destruction of the Ukrainian state.
