Russia blames Ukraine for the car explosion that injured pro-Putin novelist Zakhar Prilepin and killed the driver

Russia’s main investigative agency said on Saturday that the suspect in the car bombing that injured a prominent pro-Kremlin writer and killed his driver confessed to acting on the orders of Ukraine’s special services.

The explosion that went off in the car of Zakhar Prilepin, a well-known nationalist writer and staunch supporter of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was the third explosion involving prominent pro-Kremlin figures since the beginning of the conflict.

It happened in the Nizhny Novgorod region, about 250 miles east of Moscow. Prilepin was hospitalized with broken bones, punctured lungs and other injuries; The governor of the region said that he was put into a “medical sleep”, but did not specify the details.

The Investigative Committee of Russia stated that the suspect, a native of Ukraine, admitted during the interrogation that he was working on orders from Ukraine.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in turn, blamed not only Ukraine, but also the USA.

“Responsibility for this and other terrorist attacks lies not only with the Ukrainian authorities, but also with their Western patrons, first of all, with the United States, which since the coup d’état in February 2014 has been diligently nurturing an anti-Russian neo-regime.” A Nazi project in Ukraine,” the ministry said, referring to the 2014 uprising in Kyiv that forced the Russia-friendly president to flee.

In August 2022, a car was blown up on the outskirts of Moscow Daria Dugina died, the daughter of an influential Russian political theorist who is often referred to as “Putin’s brain.” The authorities claim that Ukraine is behind the explosion.

last month explosion in the cafe Popular military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was killed in St. Petersburg. The officials once again blamed the Ukrainian special services.

Russian news agency RBC, citing unnamed sources, reported that Prilepin was returning to Moscow on Saturday from Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which are partially occupied by Ukraine, and stopped in Nizhny Novgorod region to eat.

Prilepin became a supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2014, after Putin illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula. He participated in the conflict in eastern Ukraine on the side of separatists supported by Russia. Last year, the European Union was sanctioned for supporting Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In 2020, he founded the For Truth political party, which Russian media reported was supported by the Kremlin. A year later, Prilepin’s party merged with the nationalist party “Just Russia”, which has a seat in the parliament.

Prilepin, co-chairman of the newly formed party, won a seat in the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, in the 2021 election, but turned it down.

Party leader Siarhei Mironov called Saturday’s incident a “terrorist act” and blamed Ukraine for it. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova echoed Mironov’s sentiments in a message on the Telegram messaging app, adding that responsibility also lies with the US and NATO.

“Washington and NATO have raised another international terrorist cell – the Kiev regime,” Zakharova wrote. “The direct responsibility of the United States and Britain. We pray for Zakhar.”

Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia, former President Dmitry Medvedev, in a telegram sent to Prilepina, blamed “Nazi extremists”.

Ukrainian officials have not commented on these accusations. However, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhail Podoliak pointed the finger at the Kremlin in a tweet on Saturday, saying that “to prolong the agony of the Putin clan and maintain the illusory ‘total control’, the Russian repression machine is picking up the pace and catching up with everyone,” including war supporters. in Ukraine.