A video making the rounds online captured the moment a bomb exploded in a St. Petersburg café, killing well-known military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky.
What’s more, the footage shows the suspected female assassin, identified by Russian authorities as a 26-year-old Ukraine-linked anti-war protester, looking on as Tatarsky admired the bust she’d just gifted to him — the small statuette appears to have contained the bomb that would kill the pro-Putin blogger.
Daria Trepova is seen trying to exit the room after giving Tatarsky, who is also known as Maxim Fomim, the box containing the statuette, but the blogger calls her back.
“Nastya, Nastya, come sit here,” Tatarsky called out, this reportedly being the pseudonym used by the woman.
She sits in a chair off to the side and can be seen covering her face a split second before the bomb detonates.
“Oh, what a handsome guy! Is that me?” the blogger says of the bust, right before it exploded.
It appears that the woman who gave the statue to #VladlenTatarsky knew it was a bomb. Look at her body language towards the end, where he’s playing around with the object. Her outstretched arms and then touching her face. She was lucky the victim shielded her from the explosion. pic.twitter.com/bZOF1XwtR6
— Dr. Strangelove (@_michalis12) April 3, 2023
There were about 30 people injured in the blast, including the alleged assassin who was seen outside the café “bent over in pain and covered in blood,” the New York Post reported.
Trepova’s husband, Dmitry Rylov, told an independent Russian publication that he believes his wife was set up, according to CNN.
“She was really just set up and used,” he said. “Over the last day I contacted her, but I lost contact about 4-5 hours ago. All I knew was that Daria needed, either for some task, or for some reason, to give some gift, I didn’t even know what.”
The woman was captured on a camera outside the café carrying a box as she entered the building, as seen below:
Mash has released CCTV footage showing a woman entering the cafe with a box that presumably contains the bomb (hidden inside a statue she gifted to Tatarsky). There are some photos from inside the cafe too. https://t.co/fWM1YDBeqA pic.twitter.com/VpRUsec4YE
— Kevin Rothrock (@KevinRothrock) April 2, 2023
Here’s footage from outside the café as the bomb detonated:
JUST IN: Explosion in St. Petersburg, #Russia at a cafe where Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was speaking. Footage here, Tatarsky was reportedly killed acc to Russian outlets: pic.twitter.com/76OovZ5JK7
— Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) April 2, 2023
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Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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