Video shows pro-Putin blogger being blown up with suspected assassin nearby

By Edward Era Barbacena

Shocking video shows the moment a prominent pro-Putin blogger was blown up in a packed St. Petersburg café — with his accused female assassin sitting just feet away.

Clips shared by Russian news site 112 show the suspect, Daria Trepova, initially trying to back out of the room after handing a box containing a small statuette to Maxim Fomim, a military propagandist better known as Vladlen Tatarsky.

“Nastya, Nastya, come sit here,” Tatarsky, 40, called out to Trepova, 26, using the pseudonym the assassin allegedly used to hide her identity as a Ukraine-linked anti-war activist.

Trepova — who was seen arriving in court Tuesday for her first hearing, accused of terrorism — is seen nervously turning back as the blogger urges her to sit near him.

She compromises by agreeing to stay for the political discussion, but in a different chair several feet to the left of Tatarsky, who had been one of the most enthusiastic cheerleaders for Russia’s war on Ukraine. 

Unaware of the horror about to unfold, the blogger is seen affectionately opening the box and admiring the bust he was handling, joking: “Oh, what a handsome guy! Is that me?”

One clip cut to the suspected assassin during the exchange — showing her holding her hands out and leaning back, before moving her hands over her face as the explosion ripped through the cafe.

Another angle showed that Tatarsky was carefully putting the bust back in the box while being asked a question when the explosion hit him.

Trepova, who was seen in other footage carrying the box into the café, was also seen outside later as others were bent over in pain and covered in blood, at least one stricken person on the ground. Around 30 people were wounded in the blast.

Russian authorities described the bombing as an act of terrorism and blamed Ukrainian intelligence agencies for orchestrating the attack at the riverside cafe in the historic heart of Russia’s second-largest city.

The National Anti-Terrorist Committee said the bombing was “planned by Ukrainian special services” and that Trepova is an “active supporter” of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.  

“The involvement of the Kyiv regime in this bloody action will be another confirmation of its use of terrorist methods,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, according to state agency TASS.

The suspect previously spent 10 days in custody for taking part in an anti-war rally.

Her case was transferred to Moscow in a sign of how seriously it was being taken. She was photographed being taken to Moscow’s Basmanny District Court on Tuesday under heavy security. She faces a life sentence for terrorist crimes.

Tatarsky previously joined separatists in eastern Ukraine after a Moscow-backed insurgency erupted there in 2014. He then turned to blogging, amassing more than 560,000 followers on Telegram.

He was an ardent supporter of President Vladimir Putin, who honored him with a posthumous Order of Courage, TASS said.