Woman Given 27 Years for Killing Pro-War Blogger in Russian Cafe Bombing

A Russian court imposed one of the longest sentences given to a woman in the country’s modern history on Thursday for the killing of a prominent pro-war blogger, an attack that hit at the heart of the Kremlin’s unofficial wartime propaganda machine.

Darya Trepova will serve 27 years after being convicted of terrorism and other crimes relating to her role in the killing of Maxim Fomin. The former bank robber-turned blogger died when a bomb concealed in a statuette of his likeness that was handed to him in a St. Petersburg cafe last April exploded. More than 50 people were injured in the blast, authorities said.

Trepova, an antiwar campaigner, denied knowing about the explosive hidden in the statue she had handed him. She told a presentencing hearing earlier this week that she was set up, describing herself as having been naive in agreeing to give him the statue.

Pro-war bloggers and a Russian official said they hoped the sentence would send a clear message to those they say collude with Ukraine to try to sabotage Russia’s military campaign. The Kremlin didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the sentence.

Russia’s Investigative Committee, the country’s main federal investigating authority, said on Thursday that Trepova’s accomplices included a person with the pseudonym “Gestalt” living in Kyiv. Ukrainian authorities have denied involvement in the attack.

The killing of 40-year-old Fomin threw a spotlight on the country’s vocal hard-right nationalist movement. Better known by his pseudonym Vladlen Tatarsky, Fomin was one of the small but influential cohort of pro-war bloggers who command vast online audiences and vocally back Russia’s invasion, often posting unvarnished updates on the war effort that can have clashed with the Kremlin’s carefully managed official line.

Their existence has been a mixed blessing for Moscow, driving domestic support for the war while lifting the hood on the toll the conflict is having at the front lines.

Igor Girkin, a far-right nationalist, attacked President Vladimir Putin for failing to pursue his war in Ukraine fervently enough. He was arrested in July on charges of extremism, which he denied. On Thursday, a court in Moscow found him guilty and sentenced him to four years in prison.

Fomin, who was born in eastern Ukraine, traveled regularly to the front lines to post reports to his Telegram channel and took an active part in the fighting. He was a member of a militia in Russian-occupied Donetsk in eastern Ukraine and fought in the Vostok battalion—a Russian militant group operating in the Donbas region of Ukraine.

In near-daily reports, Fomin marked developments in the war. He also praised Russia’s illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions and encouraged fellow Russians to sign up to fight in the war by joining the now disbanded Russian paramilitary group Wagner. That group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, led a short-lived coup last summer before being killed in a plane crash weeks later.

Fomin was posthumously awarded the order of courage by Putin, a state honor that recognizes selfless acts of courage and valor.

His death was the second bomb attack targeting pro-war figures on Russian soil to follow the full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In August 2022, Russia blamed Ukraine for the killing of the daughter of a Russian far-right ideologue in a car bombing just outside Moscow. U.S. intelligence agencies in October concluded that Ukraine was behind the attack. Kyiv has denied playing any role in either incident.

After the ruling by the court in St. Petersburg on Thursday, Trepova’s lawyer, Daniil Berman, told reporters that his client planned to appeal. “We consider it illegal and unfounded…since this is probably the most cruel sentence against a woman in Russia in the entire history of modern justice,” Berman said.

Russian Dmitry Kasintsev, a college mate of Trepova’s husband, was also sentenced Thursday to 21 months in prison for sheltering Trepova following Fomin’s killing and concealing a serious crime. Elena Koneva, a lawyer for Kasintsev, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

During the hearing earlier this week, Trepova said she hadn’t pleaded guilty to Fomin’s killing. “But I acknowledge my moral responsibility,” she said.

Russian war correspondent Alexander Kots said the sentence was short given that Trepova had committed the crime he described as “in the interests of our military enemy, on its instructions and with its direct participation.”

Andrei Medvedev, a deputy for the Moscow City Duma, the regional parliament, wrote on Telegram that “in the case of terrorists and murderers, in principle, no matter how much [time] you give, it will never be enough.”

Write to Ann M. Simmons at [email protected]