Russia court sentences suspect in killing of military journalist to 27 years in prison

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) - A court in the Russian city of St. Petersburg sentenced Daria Trepova to 27 years in prison for killing a military correspondent in a bomb blast last year.

The Western District Military Court found Trepova guilty of document forgery and bringing an explosive device to a cafe in the center of St. Petersburg, which caused the blast that killed war reporter Vladlen Tatrsky and injured more than 50 people.

Trepova admitted that she falsified documents and brought a statuette containing the bomb and offered it to Tatarsky, but did not plead guilty to the murder, claiming she thought the item had a listening device.

Dmitry Kasintsev, who was hiding Trepova after the attack, was sentenced to 1.9 years in prison.

The Investigative Committee said the terrorist attack was planned in Ukraine by Roman Popkov and Yury Denisov, who gave Trepova instructions what to do and transferred cryptocurrency to implement the scheme.

Tatarsky was killed on April 2, 2023 in an explosion in a cafe in St. Petersburg. The explosives were in a statuette that Trepova handed to the military correspondent.

Commenting on the incident, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had said last year: “I don’t think about what is happening in St. Petersburg or Moscow. Russia should think about this. I am thinking about our country.”