Russia sentences woman to 27 years in bomb assassination of blogger

Russian courts on Thursday imposed prison sentences in two telling cases connected to the war in Ukraine, with one serving as a threat to pro-war Russians who criticize the military’s performance on the battlefield and another, much harsher sentence, as warning that Russians aiding Kyiv in this war will see no mercy.

In St. Petersburg, a military court sentenced Daria Trepova, a young antiwar activist, to 27 years in prison on terrorism charges connected to the killing of a prominent pro-war blogger in a cafe, the harshest known sentence for a woman in modern Russian history.

Trepova, 26, was arrested last spring and accused of giving a statuette with a bomb inside to Maxim Fomin, a pro-war commentator and Telegram blogger with over half a million followers, better known by his pen name Vladlen Tatarsky. Fomin died in the blast.