The Kremlin is targeting kyiv. Moscow on Monday accused Ukraine, with the complicity of supporters of imprisoned Russian opponent Alexei Navalny, of having orchestrated the attack in which a famous blogger supporting the offensive of the Russia against its neighbour.
Investigators also announced the arrest of a young woman, Daria Trepova, a Russian national presented as an activist of Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Fund, banned in Russia since 2021. The police then released a video in which this 26-year-old woman admits to having brought a booby-trapped statuette whose explosion caused the death of blogger Maxime Fomin known under the pseudonym of Vladlen Tatarskiï.
kyiv denies any involvement
She refuses to say for the moment where the bomb came from and does not say a word about the organization of Alexeï Navalny. The opponent, imprisoned for more than two years, is serving a nine-year prison sentence for fraud and is also being prosecuted for extremism. The attack “was planned by the secret service of Ukraine, which recruited agents among those collaborating with the so-called Navalny Anti-Corruption Fund”, assured the Anti-Terrorism Committee of Russia on Monday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman denounced “an act of terrorism”. The day before, an official of the Ukrainian presidency, Mykhaïlo Podoliak had denied any involvement on Twitter, believing that it was “internal terrorism” due to rivalries within the Russian regime.
After the accusations brought against the organization of Alexei Navalny, his spokesperson, Kira Iarmych, denounced a set-up by the Kremlin. “Alexei will soon be tried for extremism, he risks 35 years. And the Kremlin said to itself: it’s great for the future to be able to add terrorism to it, ”she wrote on Twitter. The young woman arrested on Monday, according to the state news agency Tass, was known to the courts for having been imprisoned for ten days after demonstrating against the Russian offensive.