The car of a prominent pro-Kremlin writer exploded in Russia on Saturday, injuring him and killing his driver, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported, citing emergency services and police.
According to the AP agency, which is based on information from Tass, the incident involving the car of Zakhar Prilepin, a well-known nationalist writer and fervent supporter of what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine, took place in the Region. from Nizhny Novgorod, about 400 kilometers east of Moscow.
Immediately, Russia accused the United States, NATO and Ukraine of planning a “terrorist” attack against the nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin.
“Washington, together with NATO, fed a new cell of international terrorism: the Kiev regime,” reacted the spokesperson for Russian diplomacy, Maria Zakharova, via Telegram.
“Direct responsibility of the United States and Great Britain. We pray for Zakhar,” the spokeswoman added.
This was the third explosion involving prominent pro-Kremlin figures since the start of the war in Ukraine.
In August 2022, a bombing outside Moscow killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of an influential Russian political theorist and thinker often referred to as “Putin’s brain.” The authorities claimed that Ukraine was behind the explosion.
Last month, an explosion at a St. Petersburg cafe killed a popular military blogger, Vladlen Tatarsky. The authorities once again blamed the Ukrainian secret services for orchestrating him.
Tass quoted spokesmen for Prilepin as saying he was “fine”. No details were provided on the extent of the injuries.
Russian news agency RBC reported, citing unnamed sources, that Prilepin was returning to Moscow today from the partially occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine and stopped in the Nizhny Novogorod region for lunch.
Police are investigating the incident, according to the report.
Prilepin became a supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2014 after Putin illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula. He was involved in the conflict in eastern Ukraine on the side of Russian-backed separatists. Last year, he was sanctioned by the European Union for his support for Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine.
In 2020, he founded a political party, “For Truth”, which according to the Russian media has the support of the Kremlin. A year later, Prilepin’s party merged with the nationalist “A Just Russia” party, which has seats in parliament.
Prilepin, co-chairman of the newly formed party, won a seat in the Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, in the 2021 election but withdrew.
Source: TSF
