Daria Trepova, 26, was also charged with illegal possession of explosives, Russia's Investigative Committee said in a statement. According to these articles of the penal code, she faces life imprisonment.
"Trepova, responding to instructions from people acting from Ukraine, brought a statuette filled with explosives to a café in the center of St. Petersburg (northwest) and gave it (...) to Maxime Fomine," the source said.
The suspect, who admitted to bringing the statuette but did not mention a link with Ukraine, was transferred earlier in the day to a Moscow court that must decide on her preventive detention, said an AFP photographer.
On Sunday, blogger Maxim Fomin, known under the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarskii, was killed in the café where he was speaking at a conference of an organization called "Cyber Z Front" favorable to the offensive in Ukraine. The café belongs to the leader of the Wagner paramilitary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Prigozhin met with activists from the group in the devastated café where the bomb exploded, according to footage released Tuesday by his press service.
"Despite the death of Vladlen Tatarskii (...) the Cyber Z Front must have a new impetus, a new breath, and become a real civic organization," he said.
The day before, the Russian authorities accused Ukraine and the organization of the imprisoned opponent Alexei Navalny of having fomented this attack, accusations denied by Kiev.
Police officers inspect a café where a bomb killed one person and injured 25, on April 2, 2023 in St. Petersburg, Russia © Olga MALTSEVA / AFP
The suspect, Daria Trepova, appeared in images published by Russian media where she is seen questioning the statuette, then staying in the room before the explosion, then walking past the entrance to the café after the attack.
"These monsters do not only want the defeat of Russia and the death of our homeland, but punish their own compatriots," former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev wrote Tuesday on Telegram, in a message aimed at the liberal Russian opposition.
He refers to the fact that Maxim Fomin was born in Donbass, a region in eastern Ukraine.
© 2023 AFP