A staunch supporter of Putin and the conflict in Ukraine, Zakhar Prilepin is injured after an explosion in his car, which killed the driver. Russian authorities say that the suspect for the “terrorist act” acted at the behest of Kiev. The Russian nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin, staunch supporter of President Vladimir Putin and the war waged by Moscow against Ukraine, was injured this Saturday (06/05) after a explosion in his car, which killed the driver of the vehicle.
Russian officials immediately blamed Ukraine and the West for the bombing, which they treated as an act of terrorism.
The Russian Investigative Committee reported that the writer’s Audi Q7 model car was the target of an explosion in a village in the Nizhny Novgorod region, located about 400 kilometers east of Moscow. Prilepin was then taken to a hospital with injuries.
The agency released a photo showing the white vehicle overturned on a track near the forest, with a deep crater next to it and metal fragments scattered throughout the area.
The committee later issued a statement saying that investigators were questioning a man suspected of being the perpetrator, and that he had said he acted at the request of Ukraine.
“The suspect was detained and, during the course of the interrogation, he testified that he acted in accordance with the instructions of the Ukrainian special services,” reads the Russian statement, which was read by a woman in uniform. The statement further states that the man admitted to detonating the bomb remotely and fled, but was eventually apprehended.
Russian state news agency TASS quoted security sources as saying the suspect was a “native of Ukraine” who had already been convicted of violent robbery.
staunch defender of war
Little is known about Prilepin’s health status. According to the Interfax news agency, a source from the emergency services would have said that the writer’s condition was serious and that he would be operated on.
On his YouTube channel and his more than 300,000 Telegram followers, Prilepin often defends Russia’s war against Ukraine, which Moscow calls a “special military operation”, and boasts of having taken part in military combat in the neighboring country.
The writer is the third prominent pro-war figure to be targeted by a bomb attack since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Moscow blames Kiev for the deaths of journalist Darya Dugina and war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in the two previous bombings, while the Ukrainian government denies any involvement.
Moscow also blames the US
On Saturday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the United States was also to blame for the explosion that injured the writer and killed his driver.
“Responsibility for this terrorist act, and for others, lies not only with Ukraine, but also with its Western mentors, mainly the United States,” the ministry said, reinforcing the Russian narrative that Washington and its Western allies are the true masterminds. behind Ukrainian actions in the conflict.
According to the Russian ministry, “the lack of condemnation by Washington after yet another terrorist act […] it is self-revealing”. “The silence of the relevant international organizations is unacceptable,” she added.
Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also blamed the West and Ukraine for the act. “The fact has come true: Washington and NATO feed another terrorist cell – the Kiev regime,” she wrote in Telegram.
According to the spokeswoman, Saturday’s explosion was “the direct responsibility of the United States and the United Kingdom”, although she did not provide any evidence to support the accusation.
Alleged attack against the Kremlin
It was the second time this week that Russia has accused Ukraine of carrying out attacks on behalf of the West, something Kiev and Washington vehemently reject.
On Wednesday, Moscow accused Ukraine and the United States of trying to kill President Putin in a nighttime drone attack on the Kremlin, which Russian forces allegedly thwarted. The Ukrainian and US governments also denied involvement.
On the same day, US analysts stated that the alleged attack was probably staged by Russia itself, as a propaganda act in order to mobilize the population in favor of the war.
The conclusion was reached by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, after analyzing the circumstances of the incident.
According to the analyst group, “various indicators suggest that the attack was conducted internally and purposely staged”. “Russia most likely staged this attack in an attempt to bring the war to the Russian domestic public and set conditions for broader social mobilization,” the institute wrote.
ek (Reuters, AP, AFP)
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