Russian authorities on Monday accused Ukrainian intelligence agencies of orchestrating a bombing of a St. Petersburg cafe that killed a Russian military blogger who passionately supported Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, and they arrested a suspect in the attack.
Ukrainian authorities did not directly respond to the allegation, but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was not thinking about events in Russia, and a senior official previously described the bombing as part of Russia’s internal unrest.
Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, was killed Sunday while 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 regularly submitted reports from the front in Ukraine, was Maxim Fomin’s pseudonym. He had amassed more than 560,000 followers on his messaging app channel Telegram.
The bombing, which also injured more than 30 other people, was the latest attack on a high-profile pro-war figure inside Russia. Last year, a nationalist television commentator was murdered when a bomb went off in her SUV outside Moscow.
Investigators said they believe the bomb was hidden in a bust of Tatarsky given to him just before the blast. A video showed him joking about the bust and placing it on a table next to him.
Russian authorities announced the arrest of Darya Trepova, a 26-year-old resident of St. Petersburg, who appeared on video presenting the bust to Tatarsky. Last year, Trepova was arrested by police for attending an anti-war rally on February 24, 2022, the day of the invasion, and spent 10 days in jail.
The Interior Ministry released a short video in which Trepova tells a police officer that she brought the exploded statuette into the cafe. When asked who gave it to her, she said she would explain later.
According to Russian media reports, Trepova told investigators she had been told to deliver the bust but didn’t know what was inside.
The National Counter-Terrorism Committee, which coordinates counter-terrorism operations, said 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 most outspoken opponent who exposed official corruption and organized massive anti-government protests, is serving a nine-year sentence for fraud, which he describes as political revenge.
Navalny’s aide Ivan Zhdanov warned that the authorities could push the false claims of involvement in the attack by supporters of the opposition leader to set the stage for another trial that would extend his sentence. He also accused Russian security agencies of being behind the blast to portray Navalny’s supporters as an “enemy from within”.
According to Russian media reports, police used surveillance cameras to track down Trepova, although she had reportedly cut her long blonde hair short to change her appearance and moved to another apartment in an apparent attempt to escape.
Military bloggers and patriotic commentators compared the bombing to the August 2022 killing of nationalist TV commentator Darya Dugina, who was killed when a remote-controlled explosive device detonated in her SUV as she drove on the outskirts of Moscow.
Russian authorities blamed Ukraine’s military intelligence for Dugina’s death, but Kiev denied involvement.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the attacks on Dugina and Tatarsky proved Moscow has the right to launch what it calls “the special military operation” in Ukraine.
Moscow has offered a number of explanations for the invasion, which Ukraine and the West have denounced as an unprovoked act of aggression, while providing little or no evidence to support the allegations.
“Russia has surrendered to the Kiev regime that has supported terrorist activities,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters. “That’s why the special military operation is being carried out.”
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the multimillionaire St Petersburg restaurateur who runs the Wagner Group military contractor leading Moscow’s offensive in eastern Ukraine, said he owns the cafe and has allowed patriotic groups to use it for meetings. He said he doubted the Ukrainian authorities’ involvement in the bombing and said it was likely started by a “group of radicals” unrelated to the government in Kiev.
Zelenskyy brushed off questions about the bomb attack.
“I don’t think about what’s happening in St. Petersburg or Moscow. Russia should think about it. I am thinking of our country,” Zelenskyy told journalists.
Although the Ukrainian authorities have not accepted responsibility for various explosions, bombings and other attacks in Russia since the beginning of the invasion, they have often greeted them with jubilation and insisted on Ukraine’s right to launch such attacks.
Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podolyak responded to news of the bombing by publishing it as the result of power struggles in Russia.
“Spiders eat each other in a jar,” he tweeted in English late Sunday. “The question of when domestic terrorism would become an instrument of domestic political struggle was a matter of time.”
On Monday, Podolyak said Russia had “returned to the Soviet classics,” citing its increasing isolation, a rise in espionage cases and a rise in political repression.
Last week, the Russian Security Service announced the arrest of American reporter Evan Gershkovich on espionage charges, the first time since the Cold War that a US correspondent has been arrested on such charges. His newspaper The Wall Street Journal vehemently rejected the allegations and called for his release.
Born in Donbass, Ukraine’s industrial heartland, Tatarsky worked as a miner before founding a furniture trading business. When he ran into financial difficulties, he robbed a bank and was sentenced to prison.
He escaped from custody after a Russian-backed separatist rebellion engulfed the Donbas in 2014, weeks after Moscow illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula. He then joined Separatist rebels and fought on the front lines before turning to blogging.
While Russian authorities have silenced alternative voices by shutting down independent news outlets critical of the war and jailing critics of President Vladimir Putin, military bloggers are playing an increasingly visible role. While strongly supporting the war, they have also frequently pointed out shortcomings in Russian military strategy and occasionally criticized the military leadership.