Russia Blames Ukraine for War Blogger’s Bomb Killing

The Strit-Bar cafe on Universitetskaya Embankment in St. Petersburg, where Vladlen Tatarsky was killed.Alexander Demianchuk / TASS

The Kremlin on Monday blamed Ukraine for the bomb blast in St. Petersburg that killed a leading military blogger and injured dozens of others, while Kyiv denied involvement.

Military correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, died Sunday and 32 others were wounded when an explosion ripped through a cafe in the center of Russia’s second-largest city.

Russia's Investigative Committee, which opened a criminal murder case shortly after the explosion, said Monday that a St. Petersburg woman, 26-year-old Daria Trepova, had been detained in connection with Tatarsky’s death.

“Russia is up against the Kyiv regime. This is the regime that supports terrorist actions,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman told reporters during a daily briefing.

“This is the regime that is quite possibly behind the murder of Fomin [Tatarsky’s real last name],” Peskov said.

He invoked Tatarsky, as well as the August 2022 car bomb killing of pro-war figure Alexei Dugin’s daughter, Daria Dugina, in explaining Russia’s motivation to invade Ukraine.

Peskov's comments came after Russia’s Anti-Terrorist Committee (NAC) claimed that the attack was orchestrated by Ukraine’s intelligence services.

The NAC said that Kyiv had allegedly “recruited” Trepova as an “active supporter” of jailed Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny and his political network, which is banned as “extremist” in Russia.

The Interior Ministry published footage of an interrogation of the suspect it identified as Trepova.

“I brought the statue that exploded there,” the woman can be seen saying in the video.

Trepova’s name had appeared in the Interior Ministry's database of wanted persons on unspecified charges earlier Monday.

St. Petersburg-based media posted footage Monday showing a makeshift memorial outside the crime scene.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/04/03/russia-blames-ukraine-for-war-bloggers-bomb-killing-a80687