Darya Trepova charged with terrorism over St. Petersburg explosion

Russia’s Investigative Committee has charged Darya Trepova with committing a lethal terror attack in a group, the agency reports.

Trepova was also charged with illegal bearing of explosive devices in a group.

“According to the investigation, on 2 April 2023, Trepova, following the instructions of individuals operating from the territory of Ukraine, brought a statuette with explosives inside to a cafe in the centre of St. Petersburg and handed it over to military correspondent Maxim Fomin, known under the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarsky. As a result of the explosion that followed, Fomin died, and more than 30 people present in the cafe were injured,” the Investigative Committee said in a statement.

The investigators have requested to take Trepova into custody until 2 June.

An explosion at a cafe in Saint Petersburg happened on 2 April and killed Vladlen Tatarsky (real name Maxim Fomin), a “war correspondent”. Russian President Vladimir Putin posthumously decorated him with the Order of Courage.

A meeting of the discussion club “Cyber Z front” was held in the cafe. It is alleged that one of the individuals that attended the meeting, namely Darya Trepova, gifted Tatarsky with a statuette, a bomb concealed inside of it.

The Investigative Committee initiated a criminal procedure on the account of murder and then reclassified it to a “terror attack”. A 26-year-old native of St. Petersburg Daria Trepova is suspected of committing a crime; she was detained earlier. The National Anti-Terrorism Committee claims that the Ukrainian special services and Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation plotted the explosion.