A military court in Saint Petersburg sentenced Daria Trépova to 27 years in prison this Thursday, accused of killing with a bomb last year the well-known Russian military blogger Vladlén Tatarski, whose real name was Maxim Fomín.
Tatarski died on April 2, 2023, during a meeting in his honor with his followers at a cafe-restaurant in Saint Petersburg. Among the audience was Trépova, who gave him a statuette as a gift. An explosive device was hidden inside. Its explosion caused the death of the blogger and left 52 injured. According to the bombers, the homemade device had a power of about 200 grams of TNT.
Trépova, 26, admitted having taken the sculpture to the restaurant, but denied knowing that there was a bomb inside. She had given the present on behalf of an admirer of the blogger, she said. She also admitted to using false documents to reach him.
One of the organizers of the meeting, Ivan Sankov, told the court that, when delivering the gift, Trépova introduced herself as Anastasia, a student at the Art Academy, and assured that she had made the statuette herself.
“I didn’t know who Vladlén Tatarski was. When I met him personally, he seemed kind and with a sense of humor. I didn’t hate him. I didn’t wish him dead,” she said last Monday in her final turn. Vladlén Tatarski, who was 40 years old, was one of the most followed military bloggers during Russia’s current military intervention in Ukraine.
The Prosecutor’s Office argued that the accused’s version has not been confirmed. She said the woman carried the explosive device during a period in a state of war situation and that the explosion was activated remotely from an Estonian SIM card.
The prosecutor also said during the trial that the accused had received around 132,000 rubles (1,350 euros) in a cryptocurrency wallet, money she used to prepare Tatarski’s murder. She bought tickets to St. Petersburg and Moscow, souvenirs and postcards about the “special military operation”, the official name in Russia for the military intervention in Ukraine.
The court that has tried her in recent months found her guilty of attack, illegal trafficking of explosive devices and falsification of documents. She will have to spend 27 years in a strict regime penal colony and, in addition, pay a fine of 600,000 rubles (about 6,100 euros).
The crime of terrorism is punishable in Russia with sentences of between 15 years and life imprisonment. According to local media, Trépova’s 27 years is the largest punishment ever imposed on a woman in Russia.
As for the organizer of the attack on Tatarsky, the FSB public relations center pointed to the Ukrainian special services and “their agents”, including Russian opponents abroad. Their main suspect is a Ukrainian citizen named Yuri Denisov, who would have delivered the device to Trépova in Moscow through a courier service and an intermediary. After the attack, he fled Russia.
The court also tried in the same case a friend of Trépova, Dimitri Kasintsev, for hiding her after the attack knowing that the police were looking for her. He was sentenced to one year and nine months in prison for concealing a serious crime.
