By Robert GreenallBBC News25 January 2024, 12:35 GMTUpdated 1 hour agoImage caption, Trepova believed the statuette given to Tatarsky had a listening device, not a bombRussian woman Darya Trepova has been given a 27-year jail term for the killing of pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in St Petersburg last April. Tatarsky was fatally injured by a bomb concealed in a statuette given to him, which also injured dozens of others.Trepova, 26, denied the charges, stating that she thought the statuette contained a listening device. She claimed she was following the orders of a contact in Ukraine and was set up. This sentence is one of the longest imposed on a woman in Russia’s history.The attack on Tatarsky, 40, (real name Maxim Fomin) took place on 2 April, 2023. Trepova was charged with “a terrorist act carried out by an organised group causing intentional death” and the “illegal possession of explosive devices by an organised group”.Russian investigators have accused Ukraine of being behind the attack, and Ukrainian officials have neither confirmed nor denied this.However, Trepova testified in court that she was following orders from a man in Ukraine known as Gestalt. She made contact with him through Ukraine-based journalist Roman Popkov. She opposes Russia’s war in Ukraine and had been looking to work as a journalist there.Trepova claimed that under Gestalt’s instruction, she gained Tatarsky’s trust, introducing herself as an art student named Anastasia Kriulina and attending his talks. In March, Gestalt sent her the statuette, assuring her that it contained a wiretap and a tracker. She expressed concern that it might contain a bomb.”I feel great pain and shame that my gullibility and my naivety led to such catastrophic consequences. I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” Trepova told the court this week, quoted by Reuters.”I feel especial pain and shame that a terrorist act was carried out by my own hands.”Image source, Vladlen Tatarsky/TelegramImage caption, Vladlen Tatarsky criticised the military over its conduct of the war in UkraineTatarsky was a well-known blogger with more than half a million followers and had a criminal past. Hailing from the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, he joined Russian-backed separatists after being released from jail, where he was serving time for armed robbery.He was part of a pro-Kremlin military blogger community that gained prominence since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Tatarsky even criticized the Russian authorities, condemning the military and even President Vladimir Putin for setbacks on the battlefield. However, he was posthumously awarded the Order of Courage by Mr Putin.Trepova’s sentencing comes shortly after a controversial pro-war figure, the former commander of Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine Igor Girkin, was given a four-year jail term for “calls to carry out extremist activities”. Video caption, Watch: The moments leading up to St Petersburg cafe explosion
