The Russian woman responsible for giving a prominent pro-Russian war blogger the disguised bomb that killed him in a massive explosion in 2023 was sentenced to 27 years in prison on January 25, the Associated Press reported.
Daria Trepova, 26, was taken into custody after surveillance footage from the April 2 blast showed her handing blogger Vladlen Tartarsky a small bust of himself at a riverfront café in St. Petersburg when he was leading a discussion.
Tartarsky was killed and over 50 others were injured after the bomb hidden inside the bust exploded.
While Trepova admitted to police that she had been asked to deliver the bust to Tartarsky, she insisted that she did not know that the bust was a disguised explosive device.
Trepova was convicted in a St. Petersburg court of illegal trafficking of explosive devices, forging documents, and carrying out a terrorist attack.
According to Mediazona, a website that reports on justice issues and human rights, Daria Trepova’s 27-year sentence is the longest prison term imposed on a woman in modern Russia.
Also convicted was Trepova’s friend Dmitry Kasintsev who sheltered her after the incident. The court found Kasintsev guilty of concealing a grave crime and sentenced him to 21 months.
After Trepova’s arrest, Russia’s National Anti-Terrorist Committee accused Ukrainian special services of being behind the bombing. The committee said Trepova, who had been arrested in 2022 after taking part in an anti-war rally, was an “active supporter” of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Born in eastern Ukraine, Vladim Tartarsky was imprisoned for bank robbery but escaped to join the Russian separatists in the 2014 rebellion against Ukraine. After fighting on the front lines for years, Tartarsky turned to blogging.
The 40-year-old Tartarsky was a vocal supporter of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. Going by the name Maxim Foman, Tartarsky had built up over 560,000 followers on his Telegram channel, filing regular reports on the war in Ukraine.
