Vladlen Tatarsky: A lady was caught in connection to the killing of a pro-Kremlin blogger

 

Darya Trepova refuses to reveal who handed her the figurine but Russian authorities have implicated opposition figure

Russian detectives have apprehended a woman in the search for the murders of pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in an explosion at a Saint Petersburg café.

In footage released by investigators – most likely shot under duress – Darya Trepova is heard saying she gave over a figurine that subsequently blew up.

Yet in the video provided, she does not state she knew there would be an explosion, nor accept any additional participation.

More than 30 people were injured in the attack on Russia’s second city.

Tatarsky had been attending a patriotic gathering with supporters in the café as a guest speaker.

A young woman in a brown coat is seen allegedly entering the café with a cardboard box in a video that’s going viral on social media.

Pictures showed the package being put on a table in the café before the lady sat down. Another video shows a monument being delivered to Tatarsky.

In a small sample of her questioning posted by the ministry, Darya Trepova, 26, seemed under stress as she sighed frequently.

When her interrogator asked whether she understood why she was held, she replied: “I would say for being at the site of Vladlen Tatarsky’s murder… I carried the figurine there which blew up.”

Asking who presented it to her she responded: “May I tell you later please?”

What is known about the suspect in the café explosion, according to Russia’s anti-terrorism committee? The assault was allegedly planned by Ukrainian special forces “with persons cooperating with” Alexei Navalny, the leader of the opposition.

Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, which has issued a series of exposes of wrongdoing involving the Putin entourage, said it was “extremely easy” for the Kremlin to blame its detractors.

Mr. Navalny has been in prison since he returned to Russia from Germany in January 2021. He survived a nerve toxin assault in Russia in August 2020, which was blamed on Russian FSB security service operatives.

Foundation chairman Ivan Zhdanov stated everything pointed to FSB agents themselves.

“Naturally we have nothing to do with this,” he added, adding that Russia needs an external adversary in the shape of Ukraine and a local one in Navalny’s gang.

Ms. Trepova was seized at a Saint Petersburg apartment belonging to a friend of her husband’s, Russian sources claimed.

She spent a few days in prison for taking part in an anti-war march on the day of Russia’s complete invasion last year.

The eatery, Street Food Bar No 1 on the River Neva, was originally owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin – who heads Russia’s infamous Wagner mercenary force which has taken Eastern Ukraine’s Bakhmut and is the scene of most of the fighting.

Prigozhin claimed he had given it over to Cyber Front Z, a group that calls itself “Russia’s information army” and stated it had rented out the café for the evening.

Prigozhin paid respect to Tatarsky, whose true name was Maxim Fomin, in a late-night video which he stated was made from the town hall in Bakhmut.tern Ukraine.

He exhibited a flag that he claimed contained the words “in good remembrance of Vladlen Tatarsky”.

Tatarsky, a strong advocate of Russia’s war in Ukraine, was neither a Russian official nor a military man. He had a criminal history like Prigozhin and was a well-known blogger with more than 500,000 subscribers.

Born in the Donetsk area of eastern Ukraine, he claimed he joined Russian-backed rebels after they freed him from prison, where he was doing time for armed robbery.

He was part of a pro-Kremlin military blogging community that has taken on a somewhat high-profile role since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started in February 2022.

Tatarsky is among those who have gone so far as to condemn the Russian government, blasting the military and even President Vladimir Putin for failures on the battlefield.

Uniquely, Tatarsky took up weapons in combat operations and reported from the front line. He claimed to have contributed to building fortifications and launching combat drones.

In September, he broadcast a video inside the Kremlin when Mr. Putin was proclaiming the annexation of four part-occupied Ukrainian areas.

“We shall defeat everyone, kill everyone, and plunder everyone as necessary… Just like we enjoy it,” Tatarsky promised his troops.

The military bloggers have offered information on combat in a nation where many have been frustrated with the lack of reliable information from official sources. Information supplied by the Russian military, Kremlin-controlled media, and state officials has been disputed for being erroneous.

Last week, multiple official Russian outlets broadcast a video depicting Ukrainian soldiers attacking people. Western specialists revealed through open-source evidence that the film had been manufactured.

Who was behind Tatarsky’s murder is unclear, although it is evocative of the death of Darya Dugina, a fervent supporter of the war and the daughter of a Russian ultra-nationalist. She died in a truck bomb attack in Moscow last August.

Russian officials have already claimed that Ukraine is to blame for the disaster. Mykhailo Podolyak, a presidential advisor for Ukraine, tweeted that “Spiders are devouring one another in a jar” and attributed the explosion to a Russian “internal political war.”

In recent months, the Ukrainians have shown that they are more than capable of launching drone assaults and explosives far into Russian territory. They often drop clues, but they seldom ever admit to being involved.

Mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin indicated he did not think it was the Ukrainian government: “I presume there is a gang of fanatics acting, which rarely has anything to do with the administration.”

The explosive could be tied to political infighting in Russia, as Kyiv has said. There are currently a lot of enraged guys carrying weapons in Russia.

With the military running short on staff, inmates have been freed from jail, handed weapons, and despatched to the front. Moreover, the Russian government has organized massive recruiting drives for voluntary soldiers and has “partially mobilized” some 300,000 men.

The Kommersant newspaper recently disclosed that the number of killings committed in Russia last year climbed for the first time in 20 years.