Daria made a bombshell joke - then came the explosion

Russia  

The words in the microphone before the explosion: "Everyone laughed" 

Of: 

Emil Forsberg  

Published: Less than 3 hours ago 

NEWS  

The woman handed the golden statuette to the military blogger and took the microphone. 

- Those outside at the entrance thought it was a bomb, she said and burst out laughing.  

Minutes later it exploded.  

About a hundred people were at Street food bar No. 1 in Saint Petersburg where the military blogger Vladlen Tatarskij organized an event.  

Now witnesses are telling Meduza about the dramatic moments before the explosion that took his life and injured  30 others.

Tatarsky was on stage answering questions from the audience when a young woman entered the venue with a golden helmeted statuette under her arm. 

 She took the microphone and excused herself for being nervous before beginning to praise him.

Daria Trepova. Photo: AP 

Daria, 26, arrested 

The Russian Ministry of the Interior now confirms that 26-year-old Daria Trepova has been arrested on suspicion of having delivered the statuette. Something she is said to admit in interrogation. 

- I brought a statuette there that exploded, she says, according to Russia's state news agency Tass.

She is said to be a resident of Saint Petersburg and was arrested as recently as February 2022 for participating in anti-war protests.  

When asked who gave her the statuette, she says:  

- Can I answer that later? 

Russia accuses Ukrainian special forces and jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny of orchestrating the explosion at the cafe, which it calls a terrorist attack.  

An expected outcome according to Russia expert Malcolm Dixelius.  

- It is not in Russia's interest to paint it as if a Russian person could have done it. They do not want to admit that there is opposition to the war in the country, even though it is quite obvious that Russian citizens are participating in the fight on the Ukrainian side, he says and continues.  

- Then there are some who are under Ukraine's influence, but it seems less likely that Ukraine would have its own underground organizations that they control inside Russia. 

Photo: AP 

Photo: Dmitri Lovetsky/AP  

"A coincidence" 

Vladlen Tatarskij is a Ukrainian former bank robber who escaped prison when Russian-backed separatists invaded Donbass in 2014. He then switched sides and became a successful pro-Russian military blogger with over half a million followers.  

He had close ties to Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, who also owns the cafe where the explosion occurred. According to the American think  tank ISW, the murder of Tatarsky is likely part of the escalating internal conflict in Russia between the Kremlin and Prigozhin.  

It is not a theory that Dixelius shares. 

- He and Wagner belong to the same cheerleaders around Putin. The Russians who oppose the war see them as a unified group behaving horribly. I think it's more of a coincidence than it was directed at Prigozhin personally. It was a favorable opportunity to attack the people they perceive as hateful and foreign to the Russia they want to live in.  

Malcolm Dixelius has followed the reactions in Russia after the explosion and noted a clear division in the country. 

- The longer the war goes on, the greater the active resistance. Now management is afraid that this is just the tip of the iceberg. It is part of an ongoing division of the Russian nation and it is the outer edges that are acting.