A 26-year-old woman has been charged with terrorism offences in Russia over a bombing that killed a pro-war military blogger.
Footage released by the Russian interior ministry on Monday appeared to show Darya Trepova admitting to bringing a statuette to the restaurant in St Petersburg, which blew up, also allegedly injuring 42 others.
She did not say that she knew there would be an explosion or who had given her the object.
While it is unclear whether her account was given under duress, Ms Trepova’s husband told Russian website SVTV News that – despite being against the war in Ukraine – his wife “would never kill” and “was framed”.
But on Tuesday, Russian investigators said they had charged Trepova with committing “a terrorist act by an organised group that caused intentional death” and the “illegal possession of explosive devices by an organised group”.
The charges carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, and were levied by Russia’s Investigative Committee – responsible for probing major crimes – which claimed Ms Trepova had acted under instructions from people working on behalf of Ukraine.
Ms Trepova, of St Petersburg, was transferred to Moscow, where the Basmanny district court remanded her in pre-trial custody until 2 June, Russian news agencies reported.
While Russian law suggests a life sentence for terror-related crimes, these cannot be applied to women, who instead face sentences of up to 20 years.
Sunday’s explosion killed Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name is Max Fomin, and injured 42 others, according to Russia’s health ministry. Twenty-four people were still being treated in hospital late on Tuesday, it said.
While a prominent cheerleader for Vladimir Putin’s war, with more than half a million Telegram followers, Tatarsky had also been highly critical of the Russian defence ministry’s blunders in Ukraine, labelling Russian officers “untrained idiots”.
Footage of the incident broadcast by Russian media appeared to show Tatarsky taking the gold statuette, in his likeness, out of a box and showing it to an audience gathered to hear him give a talk before it exploded.
On Monday, Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee accused Ukrainian intelligence of organising the killing with help from supporters of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny – a possible reference to the fact that Ms Trepova once registered for a tactical voting scheme promoted by Mr Navalny’s movement.
But Mykhailo Podolyak, an aide to the Ukrainian president, blamed the bombing on infighting in Russia, saying it had only been “a matter of time” before “domestic terrorism” would become an instrument of Russia’s internal political struggle.
Ilya Ponomaryov, a former Russian lawmaker turned Ukraine-based Kremlin critic, also published a statement from what he said was a group of Russian militants called the National Republican Army, in which it claimed responsibility for the blast.
Last August, Mr Ponomaryov said the National Republican Army had planted the car bomb near Moscow which killed Darya Dugina, the daughter of an ultra-nationalist. Until that point, the group had never been referred to publicly before.
Court documents indicate that Ms Trepova was among the nearly 1,400 Russians detained at nationwide protests on 24 February last year, after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Tatarsky, formerly a coal miner and furniture trader from the Donbas region, had himself fought in Ukraine for separatist forces, after allegedly fleeing custody in Ukraine for bank robbery when civil war engulfed parts of the Donbas in 2014.
Last year, in a video shot at a ceremony in the Kremlin to mark Russia’s unilateral annexation of four Ukrainian regions, he said Russia should “kill everyone” and “rob everyone” in Ukraine.
Some local media outlets reported the cafe targeted in Sunday’s blast had previously belonged to Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner mercenary group that is fighting for Russia in Ukraine.
Mr Prigozhin, who has also been at loggerheads with Russia’s defence ministry in recent months, has said he believes the bomb which killed Tatarsky was likely planned by a “group of radicals” unrelated to the government in Kyiv.
Additional reporting by Reuters
