Russian woman sentenced to 27 years in prison for fatal bombing of pro-war blogger

A Russian court on Thursday sentenced a woman to 27 years for a café blast that killed a prominent pro-war blogger after he was given a bust of himself that later exploded.

Darya Trepova, 26, was convicted by the court in St. Petersburg of carrying out a terrorist attack, illegal trafficking of explosive devices and forging documents in the April 2 blast at the café in which Maxim Fomin, who gained prominence blogging under the name Vladlen Tatarsky, was killed.

The bombing injured 52 others.

Tatarsky, 40, was an ardent supporter of the Kremlin's military action in Ukraine and filed regular reports on the fighting from the front lines.

Trepova was seen on video presenting Tatarsky with the bust moments before the blast at the riverside café in the historic heart of Russia's second-largest city where he was leading a discussion.

Trepova told the court that she had believed that the package she handed to him had contained a listening device, not a bomb. Trepova said she was acting under orders from a man in Ukraine whom she knew as "Gestalt" — German for "Shape" — who had been sending her money and instructions for several months before the killing.

Kremlin authorities blamed Ukrainian intelligence agencies and Russian opposition figures for orchestrating the bombing. Authorities in Kyiv have not directly responded to the accusation.

Earlier Thursday, the Moscow City Court convicted a former Ukraine rebel leader, who called President Vladimir Putin "cowardly," of extremism and sentenced him to four years in prison.

Igor Girkin supported launching Russia's war in Ukraine, but sharply criticized authorities for being inept and indecisive in carrying out the fight. He called Putin a "nonentity" and a person of "cowardly mediocrity."

He was arrested in July on extremism charges and remained in custody since then. The conviction reflects the high sensitivity of Russian authorities to criticism and opposition. After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, that sensitivity intensified sharply, with the passage of laws criminalizing statements and news reports that allegedly discredit the Russian military.

Girkin's sentence was considerably less harsh than those handed to some figures who have denounced the war, notably the 25-year sentence imposed on opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Girkin, who used the surname alias of Strelkov, meaning shooter, was the most prominent leader of Russian-backed separatist fighters in Ukraine's Donetsk region in 2014, when rebellion arose after the ouster of Ukraine's Russia-allied president. He briefly became the self-declared separatist government's defence minister, but left the post in August 2014 after rebel forces shot down a Malaysian passenger airliner over Donetsk, killing all 298 people aboard.

Girkin was convicted in absentia of murder in the Netherlands, where the flight had originated, for his role. He returned to Russia and became a nationalist commentator and activist.