Prominent nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin is a staunch supporter of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
A prominent pro-Kremlin novelist was wounded on Saturday in a car bomb that killed his driver, Russian officials said.
Nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin, who is a staunch supporter of what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine, was wounded in the Nizhny Novgorod region, about 400 km east of Moscow.
Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, Gleb Nikitin, said Prilepin suffered minor broken bones and received medical attention.
Russian news outlet RBC reported that Prilepin traveled back to Moscow from Ukraine’s partially occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions on Saturday, stopping in the Nizhny Novgorod region for a meal.
The state investigation committee said it was treating the incident as an “act of terrorism”.
The commission has released a photo of a white vehicle overturned on a track next to a forest, with a deep crater next to it and metal fragments scattered nearby.
The commission later issued a statement saying investigators questioned a suspect identified as Alexander Permyakov.
“The suspect was detained and during interrogation he testified that he was acting on behalf of the Ukrainian special services,” said the statement, read by a woman in uniform.
According to the statement, he acknowledged that he detonated the bomb remotely and fled, but was detained.
Prilepin, who prided himself on taking part in military fighting in Ukraine, was the third prominent pro-war figure to be targeted by a bomb since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of his neighboring country in February 2022.
In August 2022, a car bomb in the suburbs of Moscow killed Darya Dugina, the daughter of an influential Russian political theorist often referred to as “Putin’s mastermind”. Authorities claimed Ukraine was behind the blast.
Last month, an explosion at a café in St Petersburg killed a popular military blogger, Vladlen Tatarsky. Officials again blamed Ukrainian intelligence for orchestrating it.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram: “The fact has come out: Washington and NATO fed another international terrorist cell – the Kiev regime.”
She said it was the “direct responsibility of the US and Britain” but provided no evidence to support the allegation.
Ukraine’s SBU security service told state news agency Ukrinform on Saturday it could not confirm or deny involvement in the car bombings or other attacks.
“Officially, we cannot confirm or deny the SBU’s involvement in these or other explosions, which are taking place with the occupiers or their accomplices,” Ukrinform was quoted as saying by the agency.
It was the second time this week that Moscow has accused Ukraine of carrying out attacks on behalf of the West, a story it seems increasingly urgent, but which Kiev and Washington dismiss as baseless.
On Wednesday, Russia accused Ukraine of trying to assassinate President Vladimir Putin with a nighttime drone strike on the Kremlin. Ukraine also denied that, and the White House said allegations that Washington had a hand in it were “lies.”