Russia blames Ukraine for bomb that killed military blogger

Russian authorities blamed Ukrainian intelligence agencies on Monday for orchestrating a bombing at a St. Petersburg cafe that killed a Russian military blogger who fervently supported Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and arrested a suspect accused of involvement in the attack.

Ukrainian authorities did not directly respond to the accusation, but President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he doesn’t think about events in Russia and a senior official earlier described the bombing as part of Russia’s internal turmoil.

Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, was killed Sunday as he was leading a discussion at a cafe on the banks of the Neva River in the historic heart of Russia’s second-largest city, officials said. Tatarsky, who had filed regular reports from the front lines in Ukraine, was the pen name for Maxim Fomin. He had accumulated more than 560,000 followers on his Telegram messaging app channel.

Over 30 people were wounded, and 10 of them remain in grave condition from the blast, according to the authorities.

Investigators have said they believe that the bomb was hidden in a bust of the blogger that was given to him just before the explosion. A video showed Tatarsky making jokes about the bust and putting it on the table next to him.

Russian authorities on Monday announced the arrest of Darya Trepova, a 26-year-old St. Petersburg resident who has been seen on video presenting Tatarsky with the bust. Last year, Trepova was detained by police for taking part in antiwar rallies.

The Interior Ministry released a brief video showing Trepova telling a police officer that she brought the statuette that exploded to the cafe. When asked who gave it to her, she said she would explain it later.

According to Russian media reports, Trepova told investigators that she was asked to deliver the bust, but didn’t know that it was hidden in it.

The National Anti-Terrorist Committee, which coordinates counterterrorism operations, said that the bombing was “planned by Ukrainian special services” and noted that Trepova was an “active supporter” of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Navalny, the Kremlin’s fiercest foe who had exposed official corruption and organized massive antigovernment protests, is serving a nine-year fraud sentence that he has denounced as a political vendetta.

According to Russian media reports, police tracked Trepova down using surveillance cameras, though she reportedly cut her long blonde hair short to change her look and rented a different apartment in an apparent attempt to escape.

Military bloggers and patriotic commentators compared the bombing to last August’s assassination of nationalist TV commentator Darya Dugina, who was killed when a remote-controlled explosive device planted in her SUV blew up as she was driving on the outskirts of Moscow.

Russian authorities blamed Ukraine’s military intelligence for Dugina’s death, but Kyiv denied involvement.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the attacks on Dugina and Tatarsky proved that Moscow was justified in launching what it describes as “the special military operation” in Ukraine.

Moscow has offered a series of explanations for the invasion, denounced by Ukraine and the West an unprovoked act of aggression, while providing little if any evidence for the charges.

“Russia has faced the Kyiv regime, which has supported terrorist activities,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters. “That is why the special military operation is being conducted.”

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian millionaire owner of the Wagner Group military contractor spearheading Moscow’s offensive in eastern Ukraine, said he owned the cafe and allowed patriotic groups to use it for meetings. He said he doubts the Ukrainian authorities’ involvement in the bombing, saying the attack was likely launched by a “group of radicals” unrelated to the government in Kyiv.

Zelensky brushed off questions about the bombing on Monday.

“I don’t think about what is happening in St. Petersburg or Moscow. Russia should think about this. I am thinking about our country,” Zelensky told journalists.

While not claiming responsibility for various explosions, bombings and other attacks within Russia since the Feb. 24, 2022, invasion, Ukrainian authorities have often greeted them jubilantly and insisted on Ukraine’s right to launch such assaults.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak responded to the news about the bombing attack in St. Petersburg by casting it as a result of infighting in Russia.

“Spiders are eating each other in a jar,” he wrote in English on Twitter late Sunday. “The question of when domestic terrorism would become an instrument of internal political fight was a matter of time.”

On Monday, Podolyak said that Russia has “returned to the Soviet classics,” pointing to its increasing isolation, the rise of espionage cases and an increase in political repression.

Last week, Russia’s security service announced the arrest of an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal on spying charges, the first time a U.S. correspondent has been detained on such accusations since the Cold War. The newspaper vehemently rejected the allegations and demanded his release.

Born in the Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland, Tatarsky worked as a coal miner before starting a furniture trade business. When he ran into financial difficulties, he robbed a bank and was sentenced to prison.

He fled from custody after a Russia-backed separatist rebellion engulfed the Donbas in 2014, weeks after Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Then he joined separatist rebels and fought on the front line before turning to blogging.

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