Status: 4/4/2023 8:14 p.m
A 26-year-old woman arrested after the deadly bomb attack on a Russian military blogger has been charged with terrorism. The accusation: She is said to have acted on orders from Ukraine.
After an assassination attempt on a military blogger in St. Petersburg, the Russian judiciary has charged a suspect who has since been arrested with terrorism. The 26-year-old is said to have given Vladlen Tatarsky a bust filled with explosives in a St. Petersburg café on orders from Ukraine. She is also accused of illegal possession of explosives, said the Russian investigative committee responsible for serious crimes. She faces a life sentence.
The 40-year-old journalist and blogger Maxim Fomin, who wrote under a pseudonym, died instantly after the statuette exploded. According to media reports, the café belongs to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the notorious Wagner mercenary group.
More than 30 people injured
Russia’s investigative committee said: “Fomin died in the explosion that followed, and more than 30 people who were in the café suffered various injuries.”
A court in Moscow imposed pre-trial detention until June 2 against the suspect. In an interrogation video released by the Russian Interior Ministry, the woman previously admitted that she had given the figure to Tatarsky. However, she did not admit to murder plans. Her husband explained that his wife had assumed that a bug had been fixed in the bust in order to eavesdrop on Tatarsky.
Kyiv rejects allegations
Ukraine has denied allegations of involvement in the case. She blamed opponents of the Russian government for the explosion. On Monday, the investigative committee and the Russian anti-terrorist committee said supporters of the imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny had helped Ukraine in the attack on the military blogger. According to political observers, the bombing could be used to justify another crackdown on critics of Moscow’s offensive.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused the country’s beleaguered opposition of “waging a war” against ordinary citizens and “executing their compatriots” via Telegram. “Terrorists” should be “exterminated like rabid dogs,” wrote Medvedev, who is deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council.
The head of Wagner’s mercenary unit, Prigozhin, said in a video released by his spokesperson team that he had come to St. Petersburg from the embattled town of Bakhmut on the front in eastern Ukraine to “honor” Tatarsky’s memory. “(He) tried to unite society in order to fight against the external enemy,” Prigozhin said, referring to NATO and Ukraine in the cafe’s bombed-out lot.
He criticized that senior officials from the city of St. Petersburg and the governor did not visit the crime scene. They are unable to mobilize young people to fight against “evil”.
More than 560,000 followers on Telegram
The pro-Kremlin blogger was a radical supporter of the war against Ukraine. He is said to have had more than 560,000 followers on Telegram. From 2014, he first fought as an insurgent for the independence of the Russian-controlled Donbass before he started blogging.
In his blog, he distributed videos of what was happening at the front in Ukraine and most recently gave young Russian soldiers tips on how to behave in the front lines.