Daria Trepova was arrested on April 4 by order of a court in Moscow for an explosion in a bar in St. Petersburg. Russian war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name is Maksim Fomin, was killed in the attack. The court approved the request to conduct the investigation behind closed doors and the 26-year-old woman was detained until June 2.
A few hours earlier, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation filed an indictment against Trepova. She is accused of being responsible for a terrorist attack by an organized group in which one person was targeted and killed. She was also charged with illegal possession of explosive devices.
According to Russian investigators, on the evening of April 2, Trepova "on the order of people operating from the territory of Ukraine, brought a statue filled with explosives to a bar in the center of St. Petersburg" and handed it over to the blogger.
Explosion in "Street Food Bar"
The first media reports about the arrest of Daria Trepova appeared a few hours after the explosion in the Street Food Bar in Saint Petersburg.
Pro-Kremlin blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, who actively supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine on his Telegram channel with over 560.000 followers, had a meeting with his supporters in a bar. Video surveillance footage shows a young woman, probably Trepova, bringing a small statue meant for Tatarska to the bar. The figurine represented a blogger.
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As the participants of the meeting told the media, the organizers initially did not allow the figure to be brought in, due to the fear that it could contain a bomb. But allegedly Tatarski himself asked for it to be brought to him. Soon after, an explosion occurred in which the blogger was killed and more than 30 people were injured.
According to the source of the Interfax news agency, the plaster figure could have contained a remote-controlled bomb with a capacity of 100 to 200 grams of TNT. During the interrogation, Trepova said that she personally handed her over to Tatarski. The bomb apparently went off after the gift was delivered and after Trepova quickly left the bar.
Former student of the University of Saint Petersburg
Daria Trepova lived and studied in Saint Petersburg until recently. There, according to journalists, she graduated from art school and Lyceum number 408. As DW learns, a student of that Lyceum named Darija Trepova received a diploma in 2015 for her work on the topic of "criminal psychiatry". This involved the forced admission to a psychiatric clinic of people who had been convicted. After that, she studied medicine at the State University in St. Petersburg.
On the university's website, it is stated that Darija Trepova passed the exam in December 2018, which authorized her to practice medicine. On April 3, the university announced that Trepova was no longer a student. She voluntarily left the university in 2019.
Arrest at anti-war demonstrations
Darija Trepova worked in a vintage clothing store for a long time, but quit her job about a month ago. Then she moved to Moscow, reports the "Mediazona" portal, referring to the 26-year-old's relatives.
Trepova was married to Dmitry Rilov, who now lives in Georgia. When the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, he and Trepova were arrested at an anti-war demonstration in St. Petersburg. Rylov is a member of the Libertarian Party of Russia (LPR), led by Yaroslav Conway. "LPR member Dmitry Rilov has been abroad for a long time and, according to his own statements, has nothing to do with Daria's alleged actions and was not informed about them," the party's statement on Twitter states.
"I think that some people used Daria for their own needs. I'm 100 percent sure that she didn't know exactly what she was wearing," Dmitriy Rilov said in the meantime on the Telegram channel "We can explain". He pointed out that his ex-wife is a "very kind and sensitive person" who would never commit murder.
Who planned the assassination?
Rilov also said that Trepova was arrested at the house of his friend Dmitry Kazintsev. He asked him to receive his ex-wife "when it was not yet clear what had happened". According to Rilov, Kazincev was also arrested.
In her last post on Instagram, before her arrest, Darija Trepova published a photo that allegedly shows her sitting in one of the cafes. She wrote: "In this picture it looks like I'm not working, but I actually am." Her Instagram account has since been deleted.
The Russian anti-terrorist committee called Daria Trepova an "active supporter" of the anti-corruption foundation, the arrested Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The agency's website states that the terrorist attack was planned by Ukrainian intelligence agencies with the participation of the foundation's agents. The director of that foundation, Ivan Zhdanov, said that Vladlen Tatarski was eliminated by the Russian secret service FSB.
However, on April 4, the responsibility for the explosion was taken by the Russian "National Republican Army" (NRA). The announcement of the "St. Petersburg column of the NRA" was published by the Telegram channel "Rospartizan" and shared by the former deputy of the Russian State Duma, Ilya Ponomaryev, who has been living for many years in Ukraine. "We prepared and carried out that action autonomously. We have nothing to do with foreign structures, let alone secret services, and we did not receive any support from them," said the organization. She calls on Russian human rights activists to help Daria Trepova, who was arrested "like other innocent people" in the case.
Nothing was known about the "National Republican Army" until August 21, 2022, when Russian opposition politician Ilya Ponomaryev said the NRA was responsible for the deadly car bomb attack on Daria Dugina, the daughter of well-known right-wing nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin.
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