The Russian presidency (Kremlin) announced that the Kyiv regime may be behind the assassination of a Russian blogger in St. Petersburg, labeling it a system that supports terrorism. Russian news agency TASS reported that Russian authorities arrested a woman suspected of carrying out the bombing, identified as Daria Tributsova, a Russian citizen who had previously been detained for protesting against the war in Ukraine.
Daria admitted in a video published by the Ministry of Internal Affairs after her arrest that she brought a statue to Tatarstsky that exploded shortly after he received it, leading to his death. However, unconfirmed Russian media reports stated she told investigators that she had been set up and did not know the statue contained a bomb, a claim supported by her husband.
Surveillance cameras showed Tributsova carrying a box into the café, followed by footage of Tatarstsky admiring and displaying the statue in front of his audience before his death. The Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee stated that Ukrainian intelligence orchestrated the bombing with the help of supporters of imprisoned opposition figure Alexei Navalny.
Navalny’s supporters, who fled abroad after the Kremlin labeled their movement extremist, rejected this accusation, claiming that Russian intelligence was more likely behind the attack. Tatarstsky had previously participated in combat actions in Ukraine and had a following of 500,000 on the Telegram messaging app, popular in Russia.
The blogger mixed messages of extreme nationalism with criticism of how Russia is proceeding with what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine. Some Russian commentators viewed the explosion as further evidence that violence related to the war in Ukraine is increasingly spilling over into Russian territory.
