Darya Trepova, who is suspected of involvement in the killing of prominent pro-Kremlin blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, pleaded not guilty to a charge of terrorism as her trial started on November 15 in St. Petersburg.
Trepova was arrested after a blast in a restaurant in St. Petersburg on April 2 killed Tatarsky, whose real name was Maksim Fomin. Fifty-two people were wounded in the attack. Tatarsky was reportedly in a meeting when a woman presented him with a box containing a small bust of him, which then exploded.
Trepova said at the trial that she did not know that there was an explosive device in the statue. Co-defendant Dmitry Kasintsev, who is accused of providing Trepova with accommodation after the deadly blast, pleaded guilty to the charge of failure to report a crime but rejected the charge of covering up a crime.
The 26-year-old Trepova is charged with "a terrorist act with an organized group that caused intentional death."
In May, Russia's Interior Ministry issued an arrest warrant for Ukrainian citizen Yuriy Denisov, saying that he was suspected of organizing the deadly attack.
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said at the time that Denisov and Trepova had decided to assassinate Tatarsky. The FSB also tried to link the killing to associates of imprisoned opposition politician Aleksei Navalny.
The FSB has not provided any evidence proving the allegations, and Navalny's aides have alleged the authorities were trying to link the anti-corruption crusader to the explosion to lay further criminal charges against him in the future.
The Ukrainian-born Tatarsky was known for his support of Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022 and of Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.