Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) claims that Ukrainian national Yuriy Denisov was involved in the St. Petersburg café explosion that killed pro-government “war correspondent” Vladlen Tatarsky (real name Maxim Fomin), Russia’s state news agency TASS reports, citing the FSB press service.
“It’s been established that D. Trepova was planning Fomin’s murder together with a member of Ukrainian subversive terrorist group, Ukrainian national Yuriy Denisov, born in 1987. Using express delivery services and a middleman, he handed the explosive device over to her in Moscow, which was camouflaged to look like a plaster bust of the war correspondent,” the statement reads.
According to the FSB, Denisov arrived in Moscow from Kyiv through Latvia in February 2023. In Russia’s capital, he bought a car, rented a flat, and began to gather data on the “war correspondent”’s life.
On 3 April, after the explosion in the café, Denisov left for Turkey through Armenia, the FSB claims.
On 4 April, a Moscow court sent Darya Trepova to a pre-trial detention centre, she is also accused of being involved in Tatarsky’s murder. Earlier, Russia’s Investigative Committee brought charges of committing a terrorist attack by an organised group which led to a premeditated murder of a person against Trepova. She was also charged with illegal carrying of explosives by an organised group.
“Darya Trepova committed a terrorist attack in St. Petersburg after multiple calls for subversive activities from heads of the Anti-Corruption Foundation [Leonid] Volkov and [Ivan] Zhdanov,” the FSB reports.
