Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky joked about bombs with the alleged killer at an event in St. Petersburg, shortly before he was killed by a trap figurineaccording to eyewitnesses quoted by The Moscow Times.
Tatarsky was killed as a result of an explosion that occurred on Sunday in a cafe in St. Petersburg owned by the leader of Wagner’s mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Vladlen Tatarsky, a staunch supporter of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was killed by an explosive device hidden in a plaster statue given to a military blogger by an attendee at an event where Tatarsky, who called for the “total destruction of Ukraine,” had intended to speak about his experience a military reporter at the front in eastern Ukraine.
Daria Trepova, who presented Tatarsky with a statuette representing him, told a pro-war blogger in front of dozens of people in attendance that security blocked her entrance to the hall with her gift because they feared it might contain a bomb, according to Marat Arnis, a local journalist who attended the event.
“She was laughing when she said it, so the audience and Vladlen were laughing with her,” Arnis said. “Everyone took it as a joke.”
In response, Arnis recalled that Tatarsky said: “No, no, no: don’t worry, bring it here, we’ll check.”
With Tatarsky’s permission, the statuette was brought inside so that Trepova could officially hand it over to him.
Minutes later, it exploded, killing Tatarsky and injuring about 40 others at the Street Food No. bar. 1, a popular hangout among pro-war activists and a meeting place for the ultra-nationalist CyberFront Z movement.
Who organized the raid
The events immediately before and after Sunday’s attack have been the subject of intense interest in recent days, with speculation over Trepova’s exact role – particularly if she knew the bust contained a bomb – and who masterminded the attack.
Russian authorities detained the 26-year-old Trepova the next day, and on Tuesday she was formally charged with terrorism.
Russia’s Investigative Committee and its National Anti-Terrorism Committee allege that supporters of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and Ukrainian militants used Trepova to kill Tatarsky, a bank robber, former Ukrainian rebel and staunch supporter of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, who has more than half a million online followers.
St. Petersburg real estate agent and war supporter Eduard Omelchenko, who attended the event, told The Moscow Times that he remembers Trepova pointing to the statuette and joking, “It’s not a bomb.”
Footage of the explosion, including a clip shot by Arnis, a former reporter for state-run Russia-1 television, does not show Tatarsky and Trepova laughing at the bomb threat.
“I am ashamed”
But it includes the moment when Tatarsky asked Trepova to sit in the front row.
“I’m shy,” Trepova is heard to say, although she agrees to sit a few meters to Tatarsky’s left, on the other side, opposite the statuette.
According to 55-year-old Omelchenko, it seems that Trepova knew what she was doing.
“The body language says that she was waiting for something to happen,” Omelchenko said.
According to Arnis, Trepova sat in the back of the room for most of the event while Tatarsky described what it was like to be a military reporter and answered questions.
“She looked very nervous,” he said.
Tatarsky criticized the Russian military
A few hours later, Trepova asked Tatarsky a question about “Russian ideology,” Arnis said, and then asked the blogger if he recognized her.
“She reminded him of a recent event in Moscow when she presented some of her drawings,” Arnis said.
At this point, according to Arnis and Omelchenko, Tatarsky seemed to remember who she was, although on video recordings of the event, he can be heard calling her “Nastya.”
Examining the statuette, which he had unpacked and taken out of the cardboard box, Tatarsky seemed satisfied.
“What a handsome boy,” he can be heard saying in the footage.
Navalny’s representatives denied involvement in the explosion, which happened minutes later, instead blaming the Federal Security Service (FSB).
Although Tatarsky, whose real name is Maxim Fomin, was an ardent supporter of the invasion of Ukraine, he was also critical of the Russian military.
Read on this topic:
- VIDEO Russia released footage from the interrogation of the alleged killer of Vladen Tatarsky: “Do you understand what you were detained for?”
- Murder in St. Petersburg: who is the blogger killed by the explosion in Prigozhin’s bar and the strange statement of the leader Wagner / Russia hastened to blame the Ukrainians, but the explanation could be different
- Putin posthumously awarded a Russian military blogger killed in a terrorist attack
- Russia accuses Navalny’s anti-corruption fund of being involved in the murder of Vladen Tatarsky
- The Speaker of the Russian Parliament “found” the culprits in the case of the murder of the blogger Tatarsky: “Blood is on their hands”
- VIDEO Explosion in a cafe in St. Petersburg. A well-known Russian military blogger was killed, at least 25 people were injured
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Source: Hot News
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