Russia arrests woman in connection with blast that killed pro-war blogger

RIGA, Latvia - Russian authorities on Monday arrested a 26-year-old Russian antiwar activist in connection with an explosion that killed a prominent pro-war blogger and wounded more than 30 people at a cafe in St. Petersburg on Sunday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced the bombing that killed propagandist Maxim Fomin as a terrorist attack and blamed the Ukrainian government, which he said “supports terrorist actions.”

The explosion at Street Food Bar No. 1 on Sunday was the second blast in a major Russian city targeting a pro-war commentator. In August, Daria Dugina, a television commentator and staunch supporter of the war with Ukraine, was killed in a car bombing that Russia blamed on Ukrainian security services. Dugina was the daughter of Alexander Dugin, a far-right Russian ideologue.

The antiwar activist, Daria Trepova, was arrested in St. Petersburg. Russian independent media reported that she had also been arrested at an antiwar demonstration at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and jailed for 10 days.

Local media published images showing Trepova handing a figurine to Fomin, who was giving a talk to fans at an event organized by the pro-war group Cyberfront Z. Fomin’s pen name is Vladlen Tatarsky.

In a video published by Russia’s Interior Ministry on Monday, Trepova admitted bringing the figurine, of a miner, to the cafe, but she would not say on camera who asked her to give it to Fomin. However, she said she would give this information to investigators. “May I tell you later?” she said.

Fomin, 40, born in eastern Ukraine, was jailed for bank robbery in 2011 before fighting against Ukraine in the separatist uprising fomented by Moscow following Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea. His pro-war blog on Telegram has more than 560,000 followers.

Fomin was among a group of nationalist military bloggers famous enough to be invited to some Kremlin events. He was present at a Sept. 30 ceremony marking Russia’s illegal annexation of four Ukrainian territories - Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia - which Moscow has been trying to seize by force. At the time, Fomin recorded a video saying: “We’ll defeat everyone, we’ll kill everyone, we’ll rob everyone we need to. Everything will be the way we like it.”

Russia’s National Antiterrorism Committee accused Ukrainian security services of organizing Sunday’s attack and claimed without providing evidence that the Anti-Corruption Foundation of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny also was involved.

Ivan Zhdanov, director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, called the claims about his group “complete nonsense and some kind of fantasy of FSB officers,” referring to Russia’s Federal Security Service. He said on Twitter that it was obvious from the outset that authorities would try to blame the organization. He added that even commenting on it was “an idiotic situation.”

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak posted on Twitter that it was only a matter of time before “domestic terrorism would become an instrument of internal political fight” in Russia. He said the attack was a sign that “spiders are eating each other in a jar.”

The Russian Interior Ministry published video on Monday of an anxious-looking Trepova. In the video, she admits to carrying the figurine into the cafe.

The cafe blast is the latest attack on Russian soil amid the war with Ukraine. Drones strikes and sabotage have forced Russian authorities to install air defenses on buildings in Moscow and locations around the capital.

The Kremlin was quick to cite the attack as a justification for its war.

“Russia is facing the Kyiv regime,” Peskov said after a journalist asked whether Russia was facing a wave of terrorism because of the war. “This is a regime that supports terrorist actions. The regime that is behind the murder of Daria Dugina. This is the regime that may well be behind the murder of Fomin.”

Using Moscow’s euphemism for the war, he added: “This is a regime that has been behind killing of people for years, since 2014. This is why a special military operation is being conducted.”

Trepova’s arrest suggests that Russia’s crackdown on domestic opponents of the war will intensify. President Vladimir Putin last month ordered law enforcement agencies to take tougher action to root out internal “enemies.”

According to Russian media, Trepova worked for some years at a vintage shop in St. Petersburg but resigned several months ago and left for Moscow. She reportedly had returned to St. Petersburg in recent days.

Pro-war military bloggers such as Fomin have emerged as a propaganda force crucial in promoting Russia’s narrative, particularly to a domestic audience that does not rely on mainstream state television broadcasts.

The bloggers offer raw, sometimes gruesome war coverage. They also have been highly critical of the Russian Defense Ministry over military retreats and setbacks last year.

The Kremlin, which is quick to crush dissent from pacifists and antiwar activists, has tolerated criticism of the military operation from pro-war bloggers. Some pro-Kremlin analysts have suggested that these bloggers may emerge as a nationalist opposition force in the future, albeit a docile one aligned with the agenda of the Putin regime.

Valentina Matviyenko, chairwoman of Russia’s upper house of parliament, said Fomin “did a lot for our future victory.”

He “not only fought in the militia, collected help for our soldiers, but. most importantly, he formed the people’s understanding of the special operation,” she said, speaking of his blog. She said he was targeted because of his public commentary.

Hard-liners immediately called for harsh action against domestic opponents of the war.

“During the nine years of the conflict, the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine has created a large network consisting of liberal-minded youth. They were identified and recruited at rallies against the current government,” said Andrei Rudenko, a military blogger and state television reporter.

Rudenko said only Ukraine’s intelligence chief knew how many more people like Trepova were wandering around Russia. “But I’m sure there are many,” he said. “Our intelligence services must knock out this liberal layer, and find and deal with every one of these walking time bombs.”

The head of the Committee on Security and Corruption Control in the State Duma, Vasily Piskarev, called the cafe attack terrorism and said it showed “the bestial nature of our enemies.”

According to Russia’s Health Ministry, 32 people were injured, 10 of them seriously.

Trepova’s husband, Dmitry Rylov, who lives in Georgia, told liberal Russian media Telegram channel We Can Explain that she was framed. He described her as a “very kind and empathetic person, who would never go for killing.”

He said that he had spoken to Trepova after the attack and that she told him she had believed the figurine contained a concealed device that allowed “access” to Fomin. “But it definitely wasn’t supposed to be a bomb,” he said.

Yevgeniy Prigozhin, head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, once owned a restaurant at the premises. He said in comments released by his press office that he had handed the location over to Cyberfront Z, which used it for meetings. It was not clear whether he retained ownership.

But Prigozhin said the attacks on Dugina and Fomin were unlikely to have been ordered by the Ukrainian government and were more likely to have been carried out by a “group of radicals.”