Professional-Kremlin novelist injured in automobile explosion in Russia

TALLINN, Estonia — The automobile of a outstanding pro-Kremlin novelist exploded in Russia on Saturday, injuring him and killing his driver, Russia’s state information company Tass reported, citing emergency and regulation enforcement officers.

The incident involving the automobile of Zakhar Prilepin, a well known nationalist author and an ardent supporter of what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine, befell within the area of Nizhny Novgorod, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of Moscow.

It is the third explosion involving outstanding pro-Kremlin figures for the reason that begin of the conflict in Ukraine.

In August 2022, a automobile bombing on the outskirts of Moscow killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of an influential Russian political theorist sometimes called “Putin’s brain.” The authorities alleged that Ukraine was behind the blast.

Last month, an explosion in a restaurant in St. Petersburg killed a preferred army blogger, Vladlen Tatarsky. Officials as soon as once more blamed Ukrainian intelligence companies for orchestrating it.

Governor of the Niznhy Novgorod area Gleb Nikitin mentioned Prilepin suffered minor bone fractures and was receiving medical assist.

Russian information outlet RBC reported, citing unnamed sources, that Prilepin was touring again to Moscow on Saturday from Ukraine’s partially occupied Donetsk and Luhansk areas and stopped within the Nizhny Novogorod area for a meal.

Police are investigating the incident, and a prison probe has been launched on the cost of terrorist act. Interiori Ministry spokeswoman Irina Volk mentioned a suspect has been detained.

Prilepin turned a supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2014, after Putin illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula. He was concerned within the battle in jap Ukraine on the facet of Russia-backed separatists. Last yr, he was sanctioned by the European Union for his help of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In 2020, he based a political occasion, For the Truth, which Russian media reported was backed by the Kremlin. A yr later, Prilepin’s occasion merged with the nationalist A Just Russia occasion that has seats within the parliament.

A co-chair of the newly shaped occasion, Prilepin gained a seat within the State Duma, Russia’s decrease home of parliament, within the 2021 election, however gave it up.

Leader of the occasion Sergei Mironov referred to as the incident on Saturday “a terrorist act” and blamed Ukraine for it. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova echoed Mironov’s sentiment in a put up on the messaging app Telegram, including that the accountability additionally lies with the U.S. and NATO.

“Washington and NATO have nursed yet another international terrorist cell – the Kyiv regime,” Zakharova wrote. “Direct responsibility of the U.S. and Britain. We’re praying for Zakhar.”

The deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, former President Dmitry Medvedev put the blame on “Nazi extremists” in a telegram he despatched to Prilepin.