Dhe pro-Kremlin writer Zakhar Prilepin was injured in an alleged attack. The 47-year-old was driving in his car in the Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow on Saturday when an explosive device attached to the vehicle detonated, several Russian state news agencies reported, citing the authorities there. Prilepin’s driver was killed and the writer himself injured. Prilepin’s press service initially announced that the author’s condition was “okay”. However, rescue workers described him as seriously injured.
Governor Gleb Nikitin wrote on Telegram that investigators have already arrived at the site of the explosion near the city of Bor. It was initially unclear who was behind the alleged attack.
Prilepin, who is known in Germany for his book “Sankya”, which was published in translated form in 2012, is considered a major supporter of the war of aggression against Ukraine ordered by President Vladimir Putin more than a year ago. He openly describes himself as an imperialist and is a co-founder of the “Cultural Front” in the State Duma, which swore artistic life in the country to war and victory. And he himself fought in the Donbass and killed many Ukrainians with his battalion, as he freely admitted in an interview.
A Ukrainian movement called Atesh spoke up on social networks and indicated that it was behind the attack on Prilepin. The group, which describes itself as a partisan movement of ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, has claimed credit for several attacks in Russian-held Ukrainian territories in recent months. “The Atesh movement has been after Prilepin since the beginning of the year,” the text said. And further: “We had a feeling that sooner or later it would be blown up.” The credibility of the message could not initially be verified.
It wouldn’t be the first time that a war supporter in Russia has been the target of an assassination: just a few weeks ago, prominent military blogger Vladlen Tatarski died in an explosion in a St. Petersburg café. Last August, Darja Dugina – daughter of right-wing nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin – died near Moscow as a result of a car bomb detonation.
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