ST. PETERSBURG, January 16 Daria Trepova, who is accused of organizing a terrorist attack in a St. Petersburg cafe in April 2023, told in court that she carried out tasks for the Ukrainian journalist Roman Popkov and his friend nicknamed Gestalt, the correspondent reported.
“I knew Popkov for a long time, I subscribed to him on social networks in the spring of 2022, and so did he. I was worried about the SVO, I sympathized with the Ukrainians, on a wave of emotions I wrote to him about whether there was an opportunity to go as a volunteer to Ukraine, he replied that he would think about it,” said the defendant.
According to her, six months later Popkov wrote that he was ready to help with the move. After that, he began to give small instructions, they communicated every day.
So, he asked to buy unregistered SIM cards, transferred money for it, and later introduced him to a friend under the nickname Gestalt. Trepova doesn’t know his real name, but it was he who sent her a parcel with a bust of Vladlen Tatarsky.
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"On the eighth of March the parcel arrived. <…> Gestalt asked me: “Did you guess what’s in the package?” There’s a bust of Tatarsky!” I laughed. They bring me a large box from the taxi; I was frightened by its size. I asked him: isn’t this like the case with Daria Dugina? Gestalt replied that no, no, there is only a microphone and a tracker. I believed it, but it scared me, they said that the package was coming from abroad. “I thought that it was impossible to transport a bomb from abroad,” said Trepova.
According to her, it seemed strange to her that foam plastic was attached to the bottom of the bust, and under it a metal disk the size of a five-ruble coin. The interlocutor explained that this is “a thing with a microphone, it will need to be removed and it will work,” the defendant added during interrogation.
Military correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky (real name Maxim Fomin) died on April 2, 2023 at a creative evening in a cafe on Universitetskaya Embankment when a bomb built into a figurine that was presented to him exploded. The journalist died instantly from multiple wounds, and more than 50 people were injured.
As the chairman of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, said in an interview, Trepova tried to convince the investigation that she did not know about the bomb and thought that the figurine contained a tracking device . As the investigation established, in fact, she was aware of what exactly she was conveying to the military correspondent. Trepova received 132 thousand rubles for carrying out the terrorist attack.
Dmitry Kasintsev, who hid her in his home after the explosion, is being tried along with Trepova.
According to investigators, Popkov recruited Trepova and supervised the preparation of the terrorist attack. The FSB named Ukrainian citizen Yuri Denisov as the second accomplice. It was he, according to the investigation, who handed over the explosive device to Trepova via express delivery. Perhaps Gestalt is what he is. Denisov and Popkov were put on the wanted list.