A woman who was arrested after Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was killed at a St Petersburg cafe has been placed in custody for two months.
Darya Trepova, 26, appeared in a Moscow court on Tuesday after she was arrested by Russian police who suspect her involvement in the deadly bombing on Sunday. The bombing injured 40 other people, 25 of whom have been hospitalised.
In a closed-door hearing, Moscow’s Basmanny District Court ruled that Ms Trepova will stay in custody until June 2, pending an investigation.
Russian law suggests a life sentence for terrorism-related crimes, but life terms aren’t handed down to women, who instead face sentences of up to 20 years in prison.
Mr Tatarsky, 40, was a prominent supporter of the war in Ukraine and filed regular reports on the fighting from the front lines. He was killed as he led a discussion at a riverside cafe in the historic heart of St Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city.
Russian authorities described the bombing as an act of terrorism and blamed Ukrainian intelligence agencies for orchestrating it.
Ms Trepova was seen on video moments before the blast presenting Mr Tatarsky with a statuette that is believed to have contained explosives.
The Interior Ministry released a video in which she told a police officer that she brought the bust to the cafe. When asked who gave it to her, she said she would explain later.
The circumstances under which Ms Trepova spoke were unclear, including whether she was under duress.
The National Anti-Terrorist Committee, which coordinates counterterrorism operations, said the bombing was “planned by Ukrainian special services.”
It said Ms Trepova was an “active supporter” of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Last year, she was arrested and spent 10 days in custody after taking part in an anti-war rally.
Ukrainian authorities did not directly respond to the accusation, but President Volodymyr Zelensky said in reference to the attack that he doesn’t think about events in Russia, and his top adviser described the bombing as part of Russia’s internal turmoil.
It was the latest attack inside Russia on a high-profile pro-war figure. Last year, a nationalist TV commentator was assassinated when a bomb exploded in her SUV outside Moscow.
Vladlen Tatarsky was the pen name of Maxim Fomin, who had accumulated more than 560,000 followers on his Telegram messaging app channel.
He 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 become increasingly visible in Russia, supporting the war but occasionally exposing flaws in military strategy while the Kremlin has shut down independent media outlets and muzzled any criticism of the war.
