ST PETERSBURG: A young Russian woman was jailed for twenty-seven years on Thursday for delivering a bomb that exploded in the hands of a pro-war military blogger last year and killed him on the spot.
Darya Trepova, 26, was convicted by a St. Petersburg court of terrorism, handling explosives and using fake documents in connection with the death of blogger Vladlen Tatarsky.
She showed no visible emotion in response to the jail sentence, which Russian media said was the harshest given to any female in the country’s modern history. Her defense team said they would appeal against the ruling.
Tatarsky was killed by a bomb concealed inside a statuette in his likeness that Trepova had given to him as a gift during a talk he was giving in a St. Petersburg Cafe.
Trepova said she had been set up, and had thought the statuette contained a listening device, not a bomb.
Trepova argued that she was acting under orders from a man in Ukraine whom she knew as “Gestalt” (German for “Shape”), who had been sending her instructions and money and for several months before the cafe blast.
Russia accuses Ukraine
Moscow accused Ukraine immediately after the attack of organizing the killing of Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin. He was one of a group of prominent bloggers who have earned large online audiences as cheerleaders for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, while sometimes criticizing its tactics.
Key Ukrainian officials have neither claimed responsibility nor denied involvement in his death, with presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak describing it as “internal terrorism.”
Trepova said she had gone along with Gestalt’s instructions as she assumed the purpose of eavesdropping on Tatarsky was to find out more of what he knew about the fighting, which she opposed.
“I feel especial shame and pain that a terrorist act was carried out by my own hands,” she added.
