Woman arrested after Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky killed in cafe blast in St Petersburg

A woman suspected of delivering a bomb that killed a prominent Russian military blogger in St Petersburg has been arrested, Russian officials say.

Daria Trepova, 26, has been detained following the death of Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, in the blast at the Street Food Bar No 1 cafe on Sunday (2 April) where he was speaking at a patriotic discussion event. More than 30 people were injured by the blast and 10 remain in a serious condition, according to authorities.

The National Anti-Terrorist Committee said the attack on Mr Tatarsky was “planned by Ukrainian special services” with the involvement of people who have cooperated with an anti-corruption foundation created by jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. It noted that the arrested suspect was an “active supporter” of Navalny’s group.

Interior ministry officials said police were called to the cafe, near the Neva river, at 18:13 local time (15:13 GMT). Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened an investigation into what it described as a “high-profile murder”.

Mr Tatarsky - the pen name for Maxim Fomin - had filed regular reports from Ukraine and accumulated more than 560,000 followers on his Telegram messaging app channel. He was one of the most influential military bloggers and was known for his blustery pronouncements and ardent pro-war rhetoric.

Russian media and military bloggers said Mr Tatarsky was meeting with members of the public and that a woman presented him with a box containing a statuette that exploded. Reports say the bomb was hidden in a bust of the blogger that the suspect had given to him as a gift just before the explosion. A patriotic Russian group that organised the event said it had taken security precautions, but added that “regrettably, they proved insufficient”.

Russia’s Investigative Committee, the top state criminal investigation agency, said Darya Tryopova was arrested on suspicion of involvement in Mr Tatarsky’s killing.

Ms Tryopova is a St Petersburg resident who had been previously detained for taking part in anti-war rallies. The Interfax news agency initially reported her arrest late on Sunday, but later said that she was on the run while her mother and sister were summoned for questioning. The interior ministry had put the 26-year-old on the wanted list on Monday.

Witnesses said the suspect asked questions and exchanged remarks with Mr Tatarsky during the discussion at the cafe. Witness Alisa Smotrova said the woman told Mr Tatarsky she had made a bust of the blogger but guards had asked her to leave it at the door, suspecting it could be a bomb.

Smotrova said they joked and laughed, and Ms Tryopova went to the door where she grabbed the bust and presented it to Mr Tatarsky. A video shows the blogger making jokes about the bust and putting it on the table next to him just before the explosion.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened a murder investigation. No-one has publicly claimed responsibility, but military bloggers and patriotic commentators immediately blamed Ukraine for the attack and compared the bombing to last August’s assassination of nationalist TV commentator Darya Dugina.

The 29-year-old commentator with a nationalist Russian TV channel died last August when a remotely controlled explosive device planted in her SUV blew up as she was driving on the outskirts of Moscow.

She and her father — a philosopher, writer and political theorist — strongly supported Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to send troops into Ukraine. Russian authorities blamed Ukraine for the attack, but Kyiv denied involvement.

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

Several explosions, fires and apparent assassinations have occurred in Russia without any clear link to the conflict since the war with Ukraine broke out on 24 February last year.

After the Kremlin’s annexation of four regions of Ukraine last year, Mr Tatarsky posted a video in which he vowed: “That’s it. We’ll defeat everybody, kill everybody, rob everybody we need to. It will all be the way we like it. God be with you.” Many countries have condemned the annexation as illegal.

A top Ukrainian government official speculated that internal Russian opposition to the Kremlin’s invasion was behind the blast, but Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak blamed the explosion on a Russian “internal political fight”. He wrote on Twitter: “Spiders are eating each other in a jar. Question of when domestic terrorism would become an instrument of internal political fight was a matter of time.”