A military appeals court in St. Petersburg on May 20 rejected a motion filed by Darya Trepova against the 27-year prison term she was handed in January after she was found guilty for her role in the killing of prominent pro-Kremlin blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, a fervent proponent of Russia's war in Ukraine.
Trepova was convicted of helping carry out "a terrorist act with an organized group that caused intentional death."
While Trepova filed an appeal against the sentence, prosecutors countered by asking the court of appeals to extend Trepova's sentence by one year.
The court decision on May 20 leaves the 27-year prison sentence in place with no change.
Trepova, who pleaded not guilty to the terrorism charge but entered a guilty plea to a charge of document forgery, was arrested after an explosion in a restaurant in St. Petersburg in April 2023, which killed Tatarsky, whose real name was Maksim Fomin. The blast wounded 52 other people.
Tatarsky was talking to people who had previously attended a meeting with him when a woman presented him with a box containing a small bust of him that blew up, killing him, according the Russian media reports.
Trepova, 27, admitted giving Tatarsky the box, but said at the trial that she did not know there was an explosive device inside.
Trepova's co-defendant, Dmitry Kasintsev, in whose apartment Trepova was detained, was sentenced to one year and nine months in a general regime correctional colony.
Kasintsev pleaded guilty to the charge of failing to report a crime, but rejected the charge of covering up a crime.
In May last year, 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 Ukrainian-born Tatarsky was known for his support of Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022 and Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.