Suspect in Deadly St. Petersburg Cafe Blast Detained, Investigative Committee Says

40-year-old Donetsk-born blogger, journalist and war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed in an explosion at a cafe in St. Petersburg on April 2. The Russian Investigative Committee launched an investigation into the circumstances of the blast.

The suspect in Sunday’s deadly St. Petersburg cafe blast that killed Russian war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky has been detained, according to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation.

“On suspicion of involvement in the explosion in a cafe in St. Petersburg, employees of the Russian Investigative Committee, together with operational services, detained Daria Trepova,” the Investigative Committee stated in a Telegram post on Monday.

26-year-old Daria Trepova - a native of St. Petersburg - had been wanted as part of a criminal investigation into the deadly Sunday blast. Trepova, according to reports, had presented Tatarsky with a plaster figurine at the cafe, which, according to the preliminary investigation, could have contained an improvised explosive device.

In February 2022, Trepova, who was born in 1997, got 10 days of administrative arrest for organizing an uncoordinated protest action "in violation of sanitary standards", according to media-cited data from Krasnoselsky District Court of St. Petersburg.

Russian war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky was killed on Sunday in a blast thought to have been caused by an explosive device brought into the cafe by a female patron. According to the Russian Ministry of Health, 32 people were injured, one died, and the condition of ten others has been assessed as grave.

After the blast, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated that Russian journalists were being intimidated by Kiev and its Western sponsors, "literally marked with special labels" on US social media platforms, and subjected to a witch hunt in Western media.

Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev, commenting on the death of the war correspondent, was cited as saying that, in his opinion, Russian citizens should report to the special services about cases of Ukrainian funding in Russia. He added:

"It's time to realize the obvious.. That if someone says in front of you that they receive money or work from Ukrainian sources, then there is a high probability this someone has embarked on the path of betrayal… And has already committed a criminal offense."

State Duma deputy Dmitry Kuznetsov has appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a request to consider the possibility of presenting Vladlen Tatarsky (Maxim Fomin) for a state award, posthumously.

Tatarsky, 40, was a well-known former military commander and a war correspondent. Born in Makeevka, Donetsk region, Tatarsky's real name was Maxim Fomin a pseudonym he took from a novel by popular Russian author Viktor Pelevin.

Tatarksy joined the Donbass People's Militia in the wake of the Maidan coup in 2014 and attempts by the new authorities in Kiev to crush independence-seeking forces in Donetsk and Lugansk by force. He served in the DPR's Vityaz Regiment, in the reconnaissance company of the LPR's Fourth Brigade, and in the DPR's Vostok Battalion. Tatarsky left the military in 2019, settling in Moscow. However, after Russia began its special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, he returned to Donbass, making a series of reports from the front.