Footage shows the chief suspect in the murder case leaving the scene immediately after the explosion
Several new videos published by the Russian Shot news outlet on Monday have shed some new light on what happened right before the blast that killed prominent Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, as well as the immediate aftermath. One of the recordings even shows the main suspect in his murder case, Darya Trepova, leaving the scene soon after the explosion.
The first video captures Tatarsky being presented with a bomb camouflaged as a statuette, which seemed to be a bust of him painted in golden dye. At the beginning of the recording, the figurine – stashed in a paper bag – appeared to already be standing on a table near Tatarsky. The blogger then studied the gift and placed his hand on its bust.
A woman dressed in a long black coat that seems to look like Trepova left the stage and went back to the audience area. Tatarsky then addressed her by the name ‘Nastya’ (a short Russian version of the name Anastasia) and invited her to sit closer to the stage. The woman replied that she “felt shy” before eventually accepting the blogger’s offer and sitting in a corner near that stage that was further away from the table with the improvised explosive device (IED).
The video ends a few seconds later with the screen going dark and sounds of an explosion, followed by an alarm ringing in the background.
The second recording, which was apparently taken by some of the witnesses, shows the immediate aftermath of the blast, with the café room still filled with thick smoke. Tatarsky’s followers, who attended the meeting with the blogger, seemed to be in shock, with many of them appearing bruised and with bloodstains on their clothes or their faces.
About a minute into the recording, the woman who looks like Trepova seems to leave the café as well. It is unclear if she was harmed by the blast, but she does not appear to have any visible injuries.
Tatarsky was the only person killed in the blast that rocked the Street Bar 1 café in St. Petersburg on Sunday. The incident left over 30 people injured and the Kremlin has branded it a “terrorist attack.” On Monday, the Russian Interior Ministry published a video of Trepova admitting to bringing the IED to the meeting. The ministry also called her the main suspect in this case.
The military blogger, who previously served with Donbass militias between 2014 and 2019, gained prominence in Russia amid the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev, as he was reporting on the latest developments on the ground on a daily basis.
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