Yesterday, Monday, the Kremlin described the murder of military blogger Vladlén Tatarski, which took place on Sunday, as a "terrorist attack". His spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, cited a report by the National Anti-Terrorism Committee (CAN) that implicates both Ukraine and supporters of jailed Russian dissident Aleksei Navalny.
The CAN accusation came hours after the arrest of Daria Trépova, a woman born in 1997, as the main suspect in the attack.
According to the local electronic newspaper Fontanka.ru, the arrest was made in an apartment that Trépova had recently rented in the Vyborg district of St. Petersburg, not far from the site of the explosion.
The explosion took place in the cafe restaurant Street Food Bar N. 1, in the center of Saint Petersburg, the second city of Russia. The patriotic movement Cyber Front Z organized a meeting of the communicator with his followers to discuss the Russian intervention in Ukraine, which was attended by about a hundred people. In addition to the death of the blogger, 32 people were also injured, 19 of whom were hospitalized; one of them, a 14-year-old teenager.
Trépova admitted yesterday that she was the one who gave Tatarski a statuette in which the explosive device was camouflaged as a gift.
"I brought the statuette that exploded," Trépova declared in a video of her interrogation that was released by the Russian Ministry of the Interior. When an agent asks her if she knows why she is under arrest, she nods: "I would say that for being at the scene of Vladlén Tatarski's murder." But when they ask him who gave him the statuette, he replies that he will explain that "later".
This statement agrees with the testimony of several witnesses who attended the meeting. The bomb would have been activated by remote control. Tatarski, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, died on the spot.
The National Anti-Terrorist Committee of Russia yesterday assured in its statement that the attack was organized by the Ukrainian secret services but that collaborators of one of Navalny's organizations, the banned Anti-Corruption Foundation, also took part. in Russia
"It has been determined that the terrorist act committed on April 2 in St. Petersburg against the well-known journalist Vladlén Tatarski was planned by the special services of Ukraine with the participation of agents who cooperate with the so-called Foundation of Struggle against the Corruption of Navalni, of which the arrested Trépova is an active supporter", says the CAN statement.
The Anti-Corruption Foundation yesterday denied having anything to do with the attack. Its director, Ivan Zhdanov, who lives outside Russia, wrote on Telegram: “Of course we didn't do that. For a long time they have tried to hang terrorism on us. There will soon be a trial against Navalni. They plan to apply the maximum sentence possible and terrorism is very good for them". He added that Russia needs "an external enemy in Ukraine and an internal enemy in Navalny's team."
According to the RBK newspaper, investigators are also examining a list of participants in an anti-war protest that took place in February 2022 in St. Petersburg.
The agents do not rule out that the young woman was used to commit the attack, and in this case she might not have known that there was an explosive in the statuette.
Police believe Trépova had corresponded with Tatarski and had attended several events involving the blogger.
The attack recalls the one in August 2022 that killed Dària Dúguina, daughter of the ultra-nationalist political scientist Aleksandr Duguin, considered an influential figure for his thinking in the Kremlin environment.
It is assumed that the attack was aimed at his father, since he was the one who used to drive the car.
The Russian FSB also then accused the Ukrainian secret services. Kyiv authorities denied any involvement.
