Moscow accused both Ukraine and the supporters of the jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny of orchestrating the attack in which a well-known pro-Kremlin blogger was killed on Sunday in St Petersburg.
Investigators also announced the arrest of a young woman, Daria Trepova, a Russian national who has been presented as an activist for Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Fund, which has been banned in Russia since 2021.
The police then released a video in which the 26-year-old woman admits to having brought in a booby-trapped statuette, the explosion of which led to the death of the blogger Maxim Fomine, known by the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarskii.
She refuses to say for the moment where the bomb came from and says nothing about Alexei Navalny’s organisation. The opponent, who has been jailed for more than two years, is serving a nine-year prison sentence for fraud.
The attack “was planned by Ukraine’s secret services, which recruited agents from among those collaborating with Navalny’s so-called Anti-Corruption Fund,” Russia’s Anti-Terrorism Committee assured on Monday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, meanwhile, denounced “an act of terrorism.”
The day before, a Ukrainian presidential official, Mykhailo Podoliak had denied any involvement on Twitter, saying it was “domestic terrorism” rooted in opposition to the Russian regime.
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After the accusations against Navalny’s organisation, his spokesperson, Kira Iarmych, denounced a Kremlin frame-up.
On Sunday, the blogger was killed in a St Petersburg cafe where he was speaking at a conference of an organisation called “Cyber Z Front” that supports the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
At last count, 32 other people were injured, eight of whom are in serious condition.
