On Thursday, Russian justice announced the sentencing of Daria Trepova, 26, to 27 years in prison, accused of murdering a prominent pro-Putin Russian nationalist blogger and supporter of the invasion of Ukraine by planting an improvised bomb next to him. April 2023 during a public event, AFP reports.

According to Moscow, the assassination was organized by Ukraine, which has never confirmed this, causing great excitement in Russia, especially among the most ardent supporters of military intervention in neighboring Ukraine.

Daria Trepova was “sentenced to 27 years of imprisonment in a general regime colony,” said the military court in St. Petersburg (northwest Russia), where the trial took place.

As the AFP photographer reports, the young woman listened to the verdict from the defendant’s glass cage.

The prosecutor’s office demanded 28 years of imprisonment for Daria Trepova.

This is the harshest sentence publicly handed down to a woman in Russia since the collapse of the USSR, RIA Novosti reports, adding that under Russian law, a woman can receive a maximum of 30 years in prison on charges of terrorism.

Trepova denied trying to kill him

Blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name is Maksym Fomine, was killed in April 2023 after accepting a trap figurine from Daria Trepova in a St. Petersburg cafe. As a result of the explosion, about thirty people were also injured.

She was then quickly arrested on charges of “terrorism” and detained. Moscow accused Kyiv and “agents” of imprisoned dissident Oleksii Navalny of involvement in the operation.

During the interrogation and the trial, the young woman always insisted that she did not know about the presence of the bomb, claiming that she had been manipulated.

He later said he thought the figurine only contained a listening device.

“I’m still ashamed”

“I would like to apologize for what happened, I’m still ashamed,” she told judges in January, Russian media quoted her as saying.

Trepova said she was acting at the request of a man in Ukraine whom she knew only as “Güchtalt” and that he had assured her that the trap statuette contained a “microphone”.

She also reported that she accepted this appointment because she opposes Russia’s attack on Ukraine, which the victim supported and highlighted on social networks.

In general, President Vladimir Putin pointed the finger at the alleged role of Western special services in attacks classified as “terrorist” on Russian soil.

He also awarded Tatarsky the “Order of Courage” posthumously.

Kyiv, for its part, has never confirmed its involvement in the assassination, and Ukrainian officials have suggested that it was an internal settling of scores in Russian nationalist circles.

Moscow accused Ukraine of several targeted attacks, such as the August 2022 death of Daria Dugin, the daughter of ultranationalist ideologue Oleksandr Dugin, or the May 2023 serious wounding of writer Zakhar Prilepin, an ardent supporter of the war against Ukraine.