Russian investigators have detained a woman in their search for the assassins of pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, who was killed in a St. Petersburg café on Sunday.
In a video published by authorities – most likely recorded under duress – Darya Trepova can be heard confessing that she handed over a statuette that subsequently exploded.
The 26-year-old does not claim she knew an explosion would occur, nor does she confess to any further involvement.
Investigators claimed to have proof that the attack was orchestrated from Ukraine.
However, Kyiv officials asserted that it was a case of Russian internal conflict.
More than thirty persons were injured in the bombing in the second-largest city in Russia.
Tatarsky, 40, spoke at a patriotic café meeting late Sunday afternoon.
Social media footage showed a young lady in a brown coat carrying a cardboard package into the cafe.
Before the woman sat down in the café, images showed the box being deposited on a table. Another video showed Tatarsky receiving a statue.
Russian officials released a brief clip of Darya Trepova exhaling under duress during her interrogation.
When her interrogator inquired as to why she was detained, she responded, “For being present at the site of Vladlen Tatarsky’s murder… I carried the statuette that exploded there.”
When asked who gave it to her, she replied, “May I please tell you later?”
Russia’s anti-terrorism committee claimed that the “terror attack” was orchestrated by Ukrainian special services “in cooperation with” opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
The investigative committee went on to state that there was evidence that the attack was “planned and organized from Ukrainian territory.” It added that it was working to determine the “entire chain” of individuals implicated.
Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, which has released a series of exposés of corruption involving the Putin entourage, stated that it was “very convenient” for the Kremlin to blame its critics when Navalny was scheduled to face extremism charges shortly.
Since January 2021, when he returned to Russia from Germany, Navalny has been incarcerated. He survived an August 2020 nerve agent attack in Russia, which was attributed to Russian FSB security service agents.
Ivan Zhdanov, the director of the foundation, stated that all signs pointed to FSB agents themselves. “Naturally, we have nothing to do with this,” he said, adding that Russia required an external foe in Ukraine and an internal foe in Navalny’s group.
According to Russian reports, Ms. Trepova was detained in a St. Petersburg flat owned by a friend of her spouse.
She was held for several days for protesting Russia’s full-scale invasion a year earlier.
Street Food Bar No. 1 near the River Neva was once owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Russia’s infamous Wagner mercenary organization, which has participated in much of the fighting in eastern Ukraine’s Bakhmut region.
According to Prigozhin, Cyber Front Z—”Russia’s information troops”—rented the café for the evening.
Prigozhin paid tribute to Tatarsky in a late-night video that he claimed was shot at the Bakhmut town hall.
He displayed a flag bearing the inscription “in honor of Vladlen Tatarsky.”
President Vladimir Putin bestowed Tatarsky the posthumous Order of Courage on Monday.
Tatarsky, a vociferous supporter of Russia’s war in Ukraine, was neither a Russian official nor a military officer, despite being a vocal advocate for the conflict. Prigozhin was a well-known blogger with over 500,000 followers and a criminal past.
After serving time for armed robbery, he joined Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine.
He was a member of a community of pro-Kremlin military bloggers who have assumed a prominent role since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.
Tatarsky has criticised the Russian government, military, and Putin for combat losses.
Tatarsky engaged in combat operations and reported from the front line, a rare occurrence. He asserted his participation in launching combat drones and constructing fortifications.
He posted a video of Vladimir Putin annexing four partly occupied Ukrainian regions last September.
“We will defeat everyone, murder everyone, and plunder everyone as required. Tatarsky told his followers, “Just as we like it”
Military bloggers have given conflict information in a nation where official sources have disappointed many.
The Russian military, Kremlin-controlled television, and state officials have been criticized for providing inaccurate information.
Several official Russian sources shared a video last week that purportedly depicted Ukrainian personnel harassing civilians. Using open-source data, Western analysts demonstrated that the video was staged.
Some pro-Kremlin bloggers criticized the video for being a vulgar hoax. Even more of the bloggers’ pro-Russian content lacks veracity.
Who was responsible for Tatarsky’s murder is unknown, but it resembles the murder of Darya Dugina, a vocal war supporter and the daughter of a Russian ultranationalist. Last August, she was killed in a vehicle bomb attack near Moscow.
In Kyiv, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak stated that the explosion was part of an “internal political struggle” in Russia, tweeting, “Spiders are devouring each other in a jar.”
Ukrainian drone strikes and explosions deep inside Russia have shown in recent months. Rarely admitting involvement, they frequently leave hints.
Yevgeny Prigozhin stated that he did not believe it was the Ukrainian administration: “I believe it is a group of radicals that has little to do with the government.”
The explosion may have been caused by Russian political infighting. In Russia, there are now a large number of angry males carrying firearms.
Due to a shortage of troops, convicted criminals have been released, armed, and sent to the front. In a “partial mobilization,” the Russian government has also conducted extensive recruitment campaigns for volunteer fighters and recruited approximately 300,000 men.
Last year, Russian murders rose for the first time in 20 years, according to Kommersant.
