Nationalist Zakhar Prilepin has surgery and his driver is killed in a car bomb in Nizhny Novgorod region.
Image source, ReutersA prominent Russian writer and pro-war blogger has had surgery and is now under sedation after a car bomb attack, officials say.
Zakhar Prilepin, a vehement supporter of Russia’s campaign in Ukraine, was in a car blown up in a village in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region. He suffered fractures and his driver was killed.
Investigators say they are questioning a suspect named Alexander Permyakov who has admitted operating for Ukraine.
That has not been confirmed by Kyiv.
Nor has Kyiv denied involvement, or responded to a Russian foreign ministry allegation that Ukraine – backed by the US government – targeted Prilepin as an ideological enemy.
Russian reports did not specify Prilepin’s injuries. The Investigative Committee (SK), which handles serious crimes including terrorism, accuses Permyakov of having detonated a remote-controlled bomb, wrecking Prilepin’s Audi.
The SK says the suspect was caught in a neighbouring village. The region is more than 425km (265 miles) east of Moscow.
The suspect “admitted doing an assignment for the Ukrainian secret services”, the SK alleges.
Image source, Reuters
It comes a month after another pro-Kremlin blogger, Vladlen Tatarsky, died in a bombing at a St Petersburg café.
Saturday’s explosion reportedly took place on a remote road some 80km from the town of Bor.
The partisan group Atesh, which is made up of Ukrainians and Crimean Tartars, claimed it was behind the attack on Prilepin.
“We had a feeling that sooner or later he would be blown up,” they wrote on Telegram. “He was not driving alone, but with a surprise on the underside of the car.”
The BBC cannot verify Atesh’s claims.
As well as being one one of Russia’s best-known novelists, Prilepin is known for his involvement with Russian ultra-nationalist politics.
A veteran of Russia’s bloody wars in Chechnya in the 1990s, the 47-year-old has admitted fighting alongside pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Image source, Reuters
He has called for the “return of Kyiv to Russia”. Last year a group founded by Prilepin called on officials to “purge the cultural space” of all who oppose the conflict.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the alleged bombing until the investigation was complete.
But Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova sought to blame the attack on the UK and the US.
“The fact has come true: Washington and Nato fed another international terrorist cell – the Kiev regime,” she wrote on Telegram. “We pray for Zakhar.”
The attack is the latest to target high-profile supporters of President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Vladlen Tatarsky was killed last month. The blogger had reported from the Ukraine front line and gained notoriety last year after posting a video filmed inside the Kremlin in which he said: “We will defeat everyone, we will kill everyone, we will rob everyone as necessary. Just as we like it.”
Activist Darya Trepova, 26, was later arrested and was charged with terrorism following the publication of a video – believed to have been recorded under duress – in which she admitted bringing a statuette to the café that later blew up.
And in August 2022, Darya Dugina – the daughter of a close ally of Mr Putin – was killed in a suspected car bombing near Moscow.
It is thought her father, the Russian ultra-nationalist philosopher Alexander Dugin, who is known as “Putin’s brain”, may have been the intended target of that attack.
The BBC’s Laurence Peter contributed to this report.