The Russian ‘assassin’ who killed Putin’s blogger thought she was auditioning for a journalistic job in Ukraine

Russian media reports say a Russian woman unknowingly assassinated a Kremlin propagandist in a bomb attack because she thought he was a test for a journalistic job.

Russia’s Fontanka news agency reported that Daria Trepova, 26, thought she was in a test of ‘propaganda resistance’ for Ukrainian media when she handed pro-Putin blogger Vladlen Tatarsky a statuette laced with explosives, causing it to shatter.

Fontanka cited leaked transcripts of Trepova’s interrogation by Russian security officials at the FSB.

Since then, Trepova has been accused of “an act of terror by an organized group causing premeditated murder”. In the aftermath of the explosion, the police arrested her and took her to Moscow from St. Petersburg under armed guard.

On Tuesday, Trepova was taken to a closed hearing in a Russian court and ordered to remain in custody for two months pending investigation. You could face up to 20 years in prison.

Trepova, who knew nothing about the explosives, said she was offered a job as an editor at a Ukrainian media platform, but was told she must first complete a training form by carrying out a series of tasks.

Trepova is told her first assignment is to see Vladlen Tatarsky speak at one of his events and to get to know the pro-Kremlin blogger and staunch supporter of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Fontanka stated that she would be given a “secret item” by a taxi driver in Moscow – who was also said to have no knowledge of what they were doing.

Reports said the statue with explosives was ordered through messaging app Telegram and delivered anonymously and handed over to an intermediary.

Trepova then received her next assignment, which was to meet Tatarsky again and give him the package.

Reports even said that a ticket was purchased from St Petersburg’s Pulkovo International Airport to Uzbekistan as part of her safe travel to Ukraine.

The explosion occurred on the lawns of the Kremlin He was speaking at a political event at Street Food Café No. 1 in St. Petersburg when the bomb exploded next to him, killing him and wounding 32 others.

Russian authorities called the bombing an act of terrorism and blamed Ukrainian intelligence agencies for orchestrating it.

Police arrested Trepova, who was seen on video moments before the explosion presenting Tatarsky with a statuette believed to contain explosives.

The Russian Interior Ministry released a video in which Trepova told a police officer that she had brought the bust to a café. When asked who gave it to her, she said she would explain later. The circumstances under which Trepova spoke were unclear, including whether she was coerced.

The Kremlin’s National Counterterrorism Committee, which coordinates counterterrorism operations, claimed that the bombing was “planned by Ukrainian special services”. They provided no evidence to support this claim.

The committee added that Trepova was an “active supporter” of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Last year, she was arrested and spent 10 days in custody after taking part in an anti-war rally.

The Ukrainian authorities did not respond directly to Russia’s accusations, but President Volodymyr Zelensky said, referring to the attack, that he was not thinking about the events in Russia, and his chief advisor said that the bombing was part of the internal turmoil in Russia.

While Trepova was arrested in St Petersburg, her case was sent to Moscow, where the country’s major investigative agencies are headquartered, apparently reflecting her highest priority.

In a closed session, the Basmanny District Court of Moscow ordered him to remain in custody until June 2 pending an investigation. Russian law proposes a life sentence for terrorism-related offences, but life sentences are not handed down to the women, who instead face sentences of up to 20 years in prison.

According to Russian media reports, Trepova told investigators that she had been asked to hand over the statue, but that she did not know what was inside.

The bombing injured 40 other people, 25 of whom were hospitalized. It was the latest attack inside Russia on a prominent pro-war figure. Last year, a nationalist television commentator was assassinated when a bomb exploded in her SUV outside Moscow.

Tatarsky is the pseudonym of Maxim Fomin, who has amassed more than 560,000 followers on his messaging app Telegram channel. Tatarsky, who joined separatists in eastern Ukraine after a Moscow-backed insurgency broke out there in 2014, fought on the front lines for years before turning to blogging.

Military bloggers have become increasingly visible in Russia, supporting the war but occasionally exposing flaws in military strategy while the Kremlin has shut down independent media and muted any criticism of the war.

It comes after Trepova was photographed on Monday with her hand chained to a radiator while she was being interrogated by Russian investigators yesterday.

Speaking for the first time since the bomb struck, she admitted to carrying the explosives-laden bust, but pleaded her innocence by claiming that she had been “set up” and did not know what was in the bust.

The head of Wagner’s private army, Yevgeny Prigozhin, visited the bombed-out café – which he owned – earlier today, where he was photographed talking to a group of people.

He’s handed the coffee shop over to a national group for meetings.

According to Russian media reports, Trepova was tracked down by police using surveillance cameras, even though she had cut her long blonde hair to change her appearance and rented a different apartment in an apparent attempt to escape.

In the interrogation video, Trepova said she understood why she was being held.

When asked why, she said: “For … I would describe it as such, for being at the site of the assassination of Vladlen Tatarsky.”

“I brought the statuette that exploded there,” Trepova said. When asked who gave her the statuette, she replied that she would say “later”.

Apparently chilling video shows Trepova, a St. Petersburg resident who was previously detained for taking part in anti-war rallies, walking to a café carrying a box containing what may be a figurine containing 450 grams of TNT – minutes ago Just from his explosion.

The Russian Interior Ministry put Trepova on Russia’s most wanted list on suspicion of killing Tatarsky after she fled the scene – but she was arrested within hours of her release.

Trepova’s partner, Dmitry Rylov – also in his twenties and a member of the so-called Russian Liberation Army – insisted that it had also been “set up”.

Wagner’s chief Prigozhin had earlier announced that he did not believe Ukrainian forces were behind the attack.

“It is indeed similar to the murder of Daria Duzhina (daughter of a Putin theoretician who was killed in a car explosion last year at the age of 29),” he said.

I will not blame the Kiev regime for this.

I think a group of (Ukrainian) right-wing extremists did it, which is very unlikely to have any connection with the government.

This comes after the millionaire leader Wagner claimed that Russia had taken control of the eastern city of Bakhmut, which Moscow spent months trying to seize.

He spoke on camera, holding a Russian flag with the name Tatarsky inscribed in his honour.

Russian investigators also said they had identified a second woman, Maria Yaran, 40, involved in the blast. She was reportedly in a hospital in St. Petersburg after the bombing.