Russian security services
detained Darya Trepova
.
The 26-year-old woman is accused of having carried out yesterday's attack in a cafe in St. Petersburg where journalist Maksim Fomin, alias Vladlen Tatarsky, was killed.
This is reported by the Russian media.
"Agents of the Investigative Committee, in collaboration with the operational services, detained Darya Trepova, suspected of being involved in the explosion in the St. Petersburg cafe", the Investigative Committee reported on its Telegram channel, quoted by the RIA Novosti agency.
"I brought a statuette which then exploded"
: this is how Darya Trepova, the woman suspected of having carried out yesterday's attack in a café in St. Petersburg, answers the question of those who interrogate her in a video released by the Ria Novosti agency.
To the question "who gave it to you?", the young woman replies: "Can I tell you later?".
Darya Trepova appears in a white shirt and with shorter hair than the security images that showed her entering the café carrying a package.
Yesterday's attack on a St. Petersburg cafe "
was planned by the Ukrainian secret service
".
This was stated by the Russian National Counter-Terrorism Committee quoted by the RIA Novosti agency.
"People who collaborate with the so-called Anti-Corruption Fund" of Russian opponent Alexei Navalny are "involved" in yesterday's attack in a cafe in St. Petersburg, "planned by the Ukrainian secret services".
This was stated by the Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee quoted by the RIA Novosti agency.
The same source adds that Darya Trepova, the woman detained on suspicion of the attack, is "an active supporter" of the same organization.
'Kiev regime supports terrorist actions'
and here is "why the special military operation in Ukraine is being carried out".
This was stated by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov regarding yesterday's attack in St. Petersburg.
"This regime is behind the assassination of Darya Dugina and most likely behind the assassination of Fomin," Peskov added, quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency.
Bomb in St. Petersburg, the 'Street Food Bar' destroyed after the explosion
Alexey Navalny's associate, Ivan Zhdanov,
has rejected allegations
by Russian authorities that the imprisoned opposition leader's Anti-Corruption Foundation is involved in the St. Petersburg bar explosion.
“Obviously, we are not involved,” Ivan Zhdanov said on Telegram adding that the charge is an attempt to extend Navalny's prison term.
Zhdanov said it appears Russia needs "not only an external absolute enemy in the form of Ukraine, but also an internal one in the form of Navalny's team."
The balance of injured people
in the explosion it rose to 32, of which 10 were in serious condition.
This was reported by the press service of the Russian Ministry of Health quoted by RIA Novosti.
"The condition of ten victims is assessed as serious, 16 in a state of moderate severity, including a 30-year-old girl, five people are in satisfactory condition," a ministry statement said.
The assassination of Russian ultranationalist military blogger Maksim Fomin, alias Vladlen Tatarsky, in a bar owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, in St. Petersburg could reveal further
rifts within the Kremlin
and his inner circle.
The US think tank Isw (Institute for the study of the war) writes it in its latest report.
ISW analysts define Prigozhin's statement as 'strange', saying that he would not have "blamed the Kiev regime" for the deaths of Fomin and Daria Dugina (assassinated in August), indicating a group of Russian radicals as responsible .
Russian nationalist blogger and war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky Frame from a video
The dynamics of the attack
- An explosion in the center of St. Petersburg rips open the afternoon.
Over 200 grams of TNT, hidden inside a statuette, were fatal for Vladlen Tatarsky, a well-known nationalist military blogger and Russian war correspondent who was killed.
The Vasileostrovsky district prosecutor's office of the city ordered the opening of an investigation.
The matrix of the attack - perpetrators, instigators and motive - remains to be defined, but attention is currently focused on the profile of the victim.
Vladlen Tatarsky (real name Maxim Fomin), 40, had become known at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, publishing daily videos entitled Vecherny Vladlen (Evening Vladlen) in which he analyzed the progress of the so-called special operation, also giving technical advice to mobilized troops.
Close to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian private militia Wagner died in what according to the Ukrainian media was one of the premises of 'Putin's chef', the Street Food Bar, between the Neva and the University.
"Probably" it was "a girl" who brought the bomb that killed the blogger into the club, said a source quoted by the Russian agency Ria Novosti, specifying that "there was a statuette in the box: a gift intended for Mr Tatarsky".
St. Petersburg attack, the police in the apartment of the alleged bomber
The Cyber Front Z group, which calls itself "the soldiers of Russian information" on social media, revealed that it had rented the cafe for an evening debate where the blogger himself was supposed to speak.
"There has been a terrorist attack. We have taken some security measures but unfortunately they weren't enough," the group reported on Telegram.
Tatarsky, very popular on social media with over half a million followers on Telegram, had shot and posted a video of the ceremony in the Kremlin where Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered the speech of the annexation of the Ukrainian regions of Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
In the past, Tatarsky had not spared criticism of the Russian military leaders after some defeats suffered and for the inefficiency of the Moscow troops themselves.
The Russian Foreign Ministry paid tribute to Tatarsky, while Kiev evoked the trail of "internal terrorism", which would become a "tool of political struggle", said presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak.
And the explosion leaves many questions open.
In particular on the role played by Tatarsky himself and by Prigozhin in the background of the conflict in Ukraine and in particular on the war of power being fought in the circle of the Kremlin.
According to retired British Air Vice Marshal Sean Bell, there would not be enough details to suggest a mastermind behind the explosion, while deeming it "unlikely" that the Ukrainian government was involved.
"As Russian casualties of the war in Ukraine increase,
According to British media, if the hypothesis that Tatarsky was deliberately targeted is supported, then his would be the second assassination on Russian soil of a high-profile figure associated with the war in Ukraine.
Last August, Russia's Federal Security Service accused Ukrainian intelligence services of killing Darya Dugina, the daughter of an ultranationalist, in a car bomb attack near Moscow.
However, Ukraine has denied her involvement.
The attack comes at a time when Moscow's forces are failing in Donbass, and Russia is increasingly isolated internationally.
However, Washington maintains an open channel with Moscow with the precise aim of freeing the Wall Street Journal journalist, Evan Gershkovich, accused of espionage.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on the phone with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, asked for his immediate release.
The answer could not have been more terse: "It's up to a court to decide his fate."
Confirming the persistent chill, Maria Zakharova lashed out at the West for its lack of reaction to Tatarsky's death: it is something that "speaks for itself, despite their concerns for the well-being of journalists and the free press".
