Photo by Peter Kovalev/TASS
Photo caption,
Trepova’s sentence is the most cruel sentence against a woman in the entire history of modern Russian justice.
January 25, 2024
The 2nd Western District Military Court in St. Petersburg sentenced Daria Trepova, accused of involvement in the explosion that killed “military correspondent” Vladlen Tatarsky. The court sentenced her to 27 years in prison—one year less than what the prosecutor requested.
On April 2, 2023, Trepova came to Tatarsky’s “creative evening,” which took place at Street Food Bar No. 1 in the center of St. Petersburg, and presented the “military correspondent” with his gilded bust. A few minutes later, the figurine exploded: Tatarsky died on the spot, dozens of people were injured.
Trepova was detained the next day. She was accused of committing a terrorist attack (Part 3 of Article 205 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), illegal trafficking in explosive devices (Part 4 of Article 222.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and forgery of documents (Part 4 of Article 327 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The maximum term for these articles together is 30 years in prison, and the prosecution asked the court to sentence the girl to 28 years.
The court found Trepova guilty on all three counts. In addition, the court decided to recover 16,495,000 rubles from her in civil claims.
Trepova pleaded guilty only to using forged documents and insists that she had no intention of harming Tatarsky. She claims that she was set up, convinced that a listening device was hidden in the figurine.
In his last word she stated that she was “very hurt and very ashamed that [ее] gullibility and naivety led to such catastrophic consequences,” and asked for forgiveness from the victims and everyone who unwittingly became involved in this crime.
Trepova’s lawyer, Daniil Berman, said that he would appeal the court’s decision because he considers it unfounded. He noted that Trepova’s sentence is the most cruel sentence against a woman in the entire history of modern Russian justice.
Bust for a “military corsair”
The investigation claims that Tatarsky’s murder was “carefully prepared” in Ukraine. Its organizer, the FSB, named Ukrainian citizen Yuri Denisov, who came to Russia in February and collected information about Tatarsky. According to the intelligence service, he handed over the Trepova bust with explosives using a delivery service, and then flew to Turkey.
The prosecution believes that Trepova knew about the contents of the figurine. According to prosecutor Nadezhda Tikhonova, this is confirmed by the girl’s behavior during the event: according to witnesses, she was nervous, gesticulated a lot, and her legs were shaking.
In addition, the prosecutor concluded during the debate, the fact that Trepova knew about the explosives was indicated by her desire to distance herself from Tatarsky after presenting the bust.
According to the testimony of witnesses who spoke in court, Trepova did not present the statuette personally – it was brought from the wardrobe after the girl took the microphone and asked the “military correspondent” her question.
“She [Трепова] She said that she was studying to be a sculptor at the art school, said that she had a gift in her wardrobe and that she was not allowed to bring it in because “suddenly there was a bomb there.” Everyone laughed – it was a joke. Well, Vladlen said: “Well, bring it, and we’ll check it at the same time,” said the victim Alisa Smotrova (quote from the “Mediazona” announced by the “foreign agent”).
Trepova’s defense, on the contrary, emphasized that the fact that after the presentation of the statuette the girl remained in the hall, being a few meters from Tatarsky, suggests that she was unaware of the danger.
“She herself was at the scene of the explosion. If the victim Vladlen Tatarsky had not shielded her with his back, she would have suffered in the same way as those victims who were with her and suffered very badly,” – noted lawyer Daniil Berman.
Trepova herself, in her last word, stated that she was “virtually sent to her death with a bomb,” and that if the correspondence with the organizers had been preserved in the case, she would now be tried “for anything, but not for a terrorist attack.”
“I have always said that violence only begets violence. <...> And that’s why I’m especially painful and ashamed that I carried out a terrorist attack with my own hands,” the girl said.
Trepova and her defense asked to return the case for review and exclude from it the charges of committing a terrorist attack and illegal trafficking in explosives.
Photo copyrightIlya Vydrevich/TASS
Completed tasks
“I never denied the objective side: I really brought the figurine there, I did not support the SVO, I wanted to go to Ukraine, I fulfilled requests, which later became tasks, but all this time I was sure that the figurine only contained a microphone. And I was willing, in a sense, to risk my freedom to find out the truth. But I was not ready to sacrifice the lives of other people,” Trepova said in her last word.
In her testimony in court, Trepova said that she received the task of getting to know Tatarsky from a journalist, a former member of the National Bolshevik Party (NBP) banned in Russia, Eduard Limonov, Roman Popkov, as well as a person with the pseudonym Gestalt.
As Trepova explained, she communicated with Popkov, who was living in Kyiv at that time, and fulfilled his small requests (for example, purchasing SIM cards), because she lost her job and hoped to go to Ukraine as a volunteer.
Popkov, according to Trepova, introduced her to a man under the pseudonym Gestalt, who also began giving her tasks. In particular, Popkov and Gestalt allegedly gave the girl the task of going to Omsk to meet Tatarsky and get to know him there.
Popkov and Gestalt, according to Trepova, reimbursed her for some expenses. So, the girl claims, after she sent Gestalt the photographs she took of Tatarsky’s book, she discovered 17 thousand rubles in her crypto wallet.
Trepova, according to her, received the task of giving Tatarsky a bust, which contained explosives, from Gestalt. Popkov, as she stated in court, was aware of the transfer of the bust to Tatarsky and claimed that it was needed to wiretap the propagandist.
Russia’s Investigative Committee accused Popkov of “leading the terrorist attack” that killed Tatarsky back in June last year. The Ministry of Internal Affairs put the journalist on the wanted list.
Popkov himself confirmed in his Telegram channel that he had communicated with Trepova, but denied any involvement in Tatarsky’s death.
On January 17, after Trepova spoke about Popkov in court, the girl’s husband Dmitry Rylov wrote An open letter to Popkov, in which he demanded that he testify in the case of Tatarsky’s murder and admit that Trepov was used in secret.
“I will not discuss the St. Petersburg operation until the right time comes. Dasha can say what she considers necessary about me. And in his last word, and at any stage of the so-called trial. That’s her right, not yours,” Popkov responded to this, calling Trepova his friend.
Dmitry Kasintsev, in whose apartment the girl was detained after the explosion, was tried together with Trepova. Kasintsev is a friend of Dmitry Rylov, it was he who asked him to shelter his wife for the night.
He was accused of concealment “by misleading law enforcement agencies.” The young man in his last word stated that he had no intention of hiding Trepova, and did not give her away out of fear. Kasintsev was sentenced to one year and nine months in a general regime colony.
Who is Vladlen Tatarsky
The real name of Vladlen Tatarsky is Maxim Fomin. He comes from the city of Makeevka in the Donetsk region.
Russian media call Tatarsky a military correspondent, but he was not a journalist and himself fought in Ukraine. But before that, he was serving a sentence for armed bank robbery in one of the colonies of the Donetsk region.
“On July 21, 2014, I was serving a sentence in a zone in Gorlovka, and the Ukrainian army was advancing through our camp,” Tatarsky said in an interview. — The battle took place right under the fence. I consider this my baptism of fire: bullets, Grads, shells and mines were flying. There were wounded and killed among the prisoners.”
Soon after the colony came under the control of the separatists, Tatarsky was released and began to fight as part of the detachment of field commander Igor Bezler.
Tatarsky participated in military operations on the side of the separatists until 2021, and along the way, together with one of the mercenaries of the Wagner PMC, he ran a YouTube channel.
With the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Tatarsky went to the front with arms in hand. Tatarsky spoke about the operations in which he took part in his Telegram channel, to which more than half a million people were subscribed. In particular, the “military correspondent,” by his own admission, took part in the launch of combat drones and the construction of fortifications.
Tatarsky actively commented on the progress of the war for Russian state media.
At the end of September 2022, the blogger was invited to the Kremlin to sign agreements on the “annexation” of four Ukrainian regions. From there he recorded the now famous appeal in support of the Kremlin’s actions: “We will defeat everyone, we will kill everyone, we will rob everyone we need. Everything will be as we like. Come on, with God.”