Former National-Bolshevik activist Roman Popkov charged with organizing Vladlen Tatarsky assassination

Russia’s Investigative Committee is charging the journalist Roman Popkov with organizing the terrorist attack that killed the pro-Kremlin war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in St. Petersburg on April 2.

Popkov, the former head of Eduard Limonov’s National Bolshevik party’s Moscow branch, has been arrested previously, during the 2020 protests in Minsk. In recent years, he’s been living in Kyiv. The Russian authorities have placed him on the register of extremists and terrorists. The new terrorism-related charges are being pressed in his absence.

According to the detectives, Popkov exchanged messages with Daria Trepova, the main suspect in the Tatarsky murder case, giving Trepova instructions. “Later, Trepova brought an explosive-filled statuette to Fomin’s (Tatarsky’s) reading. The explosion resulted in the [war] correspondent’s death,” said the Investigative Committee in a press release.

Earlier, Popkov was placed on the Interior Ministry’s Wanted list, but the exact charges against him were unknown.

Popkov denies any role in the assassination. He says he only knew Trepova through social media.