Daria Trepova is sentenced to 27 years in prison for the cafe bomb in Saint Petersburg

The Russian military blogger accepted the gold bust before it exploded in the cafe.

Now Daria Trepova, 26, is sentenced to 27 years in prison for terrorism.

– I was sent to my death, she says during the trial.

About a hundred people were at Street food bar No. 1 in Saint Petersburg at the beginning of April last year, where the Putin-connected military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky organized an event for ultra-nationalists.

Tatarsky was on stage answering questions from the audience when a young woman entered the room with a golden bust under her arm.

She then handed over the gift and took the microphone in the room:

– Those outside at the entrance thought it was a bomb, she said and burst out laughing.

Minutes later it exploded.

Convicted of terrorist acts

Tatarsky was killed by the explosion and over 50 people were injured.

Shortly afterwards, 26-year-old Daria Trepova was arrested on suspicion of having delivered the bomb. On Thursday, she was sentenced to 27 years in prison for carrying out a terrorist attack on behalf of the Ukrainian security service.

Trepova herself claims that she received instructions from Russian opposition journalist Roman Popkov, alias Gestalt, who promised to help her get to Ukraine to work as a volunteer.

“Be sure it was a microphone”

During the trial, she said that she did not know there was a bomb in the bust and that she feels “pain and shame over her naivety”.

– I was always sure that there was only one microphone in the bust. In fact, I was sent with a bomb to my death.

Vladlen Tatarskij was a Ukrainian former bank robber who escaped prison when Russian-backed separatists invaded Donbass in 2014. He then switched sides and became a successful pro-Russian military blogger with over half a million followers.

He had close ties to Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin who also owned the cafe where the explosion occurred. The American think tank ISW stated that Tatarsky’s assassination was likely part of the escalating internal conflict in Russia between the Kremlin and Prigozhin.