MOSCOW -- A court in Moscow has extended the pretrial detention of Darya Trepova, the woman suspected in the assassination of a prominent Russian war blogger at a St. Petersburg cafe in early April.
The Basmanny district court in the Russian capital ruled on June 1 that Trepova must stay in pretrial detention until at least September 3.
The 26-year-old Trepova was arrested on a charge of committing "a terrorist act with an organized group that caused intentional death" shortly after a blast in St. Petersburg on April 2 killed Vladlen Tatarsky, the pen name of prominent pro-Kremlin blogger Maksim Fomin. Dozens of others were wounded in the attack.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said on June 1 that an arrest warrant was issued for the Kyiv-based Russian journalist Roman Popkov on suspicion of recruiting Trepova to carry out the assassination of Tatarsky.
The Investigative Committee also said Popkov was added to the Interior Ministry’s wanted list.
Last week, Popkov was added to the registry of terrorists and extremists.
Tatarsky was known for his support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and support for Moscow-backed separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.
Investigators say Trepova was working on the instruction of people representing Ukraine, which Moscow invaded in February 2022, sparking a war that has killed thousands.
Russian media have said that Tatarsky was meeting with attendees when a woman presented him with a box containing a small bust of him that apparently exploded.
Following her detention, Russia's Interior Ministry posted a video of Trepova, who may have been speaking under duress, telling an interrogator that she "brought the statuette there that exploded." When asked who had given her the bust, she replied that she would answer the question "later."
Tatarsky's death marked the second assassination of a prominent advocate of Russia's war against Ukraine. In August, nationalist TV commentator Darya Dugina was killed in a car bombing near Moscow.
Russian authorities blamed Ukrainian military intelligence for the death of Dugina, whose father is well-known Russian war supporter and ideologue Aleksandr Dugin.
Kyiv denied involvement in Dugina's death.