Russian authorities blamed Ukraine and Russian opposition activists on Monday for the bombing that killed a prominent pro-war blogger a day earlier, signaling that the Kremlin could use dramatic attack. counted in St. operates in Russia.
The Russian government’s counter-terrorism commission issued a statement claiming, without providing evidence, that deadly bombing at a pro-war gathering at a St. Petersburg was planned by the Ukrainian intelligence services, along with “agents” linked to the movement of the imprisoned opposition leader. Alexei A. Navalny.
Police arrested a Russian woman on Monday and released a video showing her confessing that she had delivered a bomb-laden figurine to a blogger, who became known as Vladlen Tatarsky. The Anti-Terrorism Committee called her an “active supporter” of Mr Navalny. An exiled leader of Mr Navalny’s movement, Ivan Zhdanov, described the accusations against his group as outrageous and said they were a pretext to extend Mr Navalny’s prison term further.
Dmitri S. Peskov, a spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin, sounded a little less definitive during his daily press conference with journalists, warning that the investigation into the bombing was still ongoing. He said that “Ukrainian intelligence agencies may have been involved in the planning of this terrorist attack.”
However, rapid developments on Monday suggested that the Kremlin was preparing to use the attack — in the heart of Russia’s second-largest city — to try to further boycott domestic protesters over the attack. Russia’s and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian news media reports describes the woman arrested after the attack, Daria Trepova, as an anti-war, citing interviews with her friends.
Tatiana Stanovaya, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says the affirmations will further divide Russian society.
“All participants in anti-war actions will now automatically become potential terrorists in the eyes of not only law enforcement but also the ‘patriotic’ public,” she wrote.
The explosion that killed Mr. Tatarsky, whose real name is Maksim Fomin, was the most blatant attack on a prominent war supporter in Russia since the August car bomb that killed Mr. Tatarsky. daria duginadaughter of a radical nationalist thinker, Aleksandr Dugin.
It came in the middle escalate drone attacks deep inside Russian territory and shelling and deadly raid In areas bordering Ukraine, violence has begun to expose residents of Russia’s major cities to the consequences of a war the Kremlin has sought to describe as a “special military operation.” apart” from a distance.
Ms. Trepova, 26 years old, from St. Petersburg, appeared on the national police’s most wanted list earlier on Monday, hours before Russia’s investigative police force said it. a brief statement that she was arrested in connection with the St. Petersburg. Court records show that a woman with the same name and date of birth received a 10-day prison sentence last year for participating in protests on the first day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
However, she is not widely known among the Russian opposition and her social media profiles are largely devoid of explicit political content. Russia’s counterterrorism agency has provided no evidence to support claims that Ms. Trepova is working with Ukrainian intelligence. Ukrainian officials have denied any suggestion that their government was involved in the bombing.
Mr. Tatarsky – who took a pseudonym from the hero of a cult novel about post-Soviet libertine life — was giving a presentation on his trip to the front lines in Ukraine when a bomb exploded in the cafe where he was giving a speech.
The venue, called Street Food Bar #1 Cafe, is owned by the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, who said he allowed a nationalist group to organize the event with Mr. Tatarsky to use it. Mr. Prigozhin said he did not believe the Ukrainian government was behind the attack, saying, “This is the act of an extremist group that is unlikely to be connected to the government.”
Video posted on social media shows Mr. Tatarsky received a figurine in her portrait on stage just before the explosion.
“What a handsome guy, is that me?” Mr. Tatarsky asked the audience after receiving the statue, according to a video. The authenticity of the video cannot be verified immediately.
After the arrest was announced on Monday, the Russian Interior Ministry posted a short video shows that a woman believed to be Ms. Trepova told interrogators that she had given the statue to Mr. Tatarsky, adding that she had received the statue from someone she declined to name.
Ivan Nechepurenko And Oleg Matsnev contribution report.
