Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) on Thursday linked Russian opponents to the murder of blogger Vladlen Tatarski and added that the attack was perpetrated by a »follower of the ideology» of prominent opposition figure Alexei Navalny.
The FSB said that the »terrorist attack» involved »Ukrainian special services and their agents, including members of the Russian opposition hiding abroad», as reported by the Russian news agency Interfax.
Thus, he stressed that the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), founded by Navalni and outlawed in Russia, »claimed after the beginning of the special military operation that it was necessary to carry out subversive activities in Russia in order to change the constitutional order».
»As a result, on April 2, a follower of Navalni’s ideology who had registered in a key FBK project (…) committed a terrorist act in St. Petersburg,» he said, referring to the main suspect, identified as Daria Trepova.
He also stressed that the security forces have identified the person who delivered the explosives to Trepova for the attack. The device was hidden in a statuette given to Tatarski during an event in a St. Petersburg cafeteria owned by oligarch Yevgeni Prighozin, head of the Wagner Group.
The FSB has specified that the suspect is Ukrainian Yuri Denisov, who sent the explosives to Moscow »through an intermediary» and »camouflaged in a bust of a military commissar». Denisov arrived in Moscow in February 2023 from Kiev via Latvia and left the country after the attack via Armenia and Turkey.
Tatarski, whose real name is Maxim Fomin, was among the bloggers with contacts in the Russian forces who routinely criticize military commanders, although rarely the target is Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin himself has recognized the importance of these propagandists to such an extent that the Kremlin has created a body to coordinate the government with these content creators.
The blogger regularly traveled embedded with Russian forces in Ukraine and was one of the protagonists of the official ceremony in which in September the annexation of the Russian-controlled regions of eastern Ukraine was made official. »We will conquer them all. We will kill them all. We will plunder what we need and everything will be as we want it,» he said.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)