Russian nationalist writer injured when bomb explodes under his car

Popular Russian writer Zakhar Pripelin, who fought in the Donbass conflict between 2016 and 2018 and is also fighting in the war in Ukraine that Russia started last year, was injured on a Russian highway when a device exploded under the car he was traveling in. , the emergency service reported today to the official TASS agency.

“The car of the writer Zahar Prilepin exploded on the highway in Nizhny Novgorod. He survived, but was injured. He is conscious,” the source said.

Medical sources told TASS that Prilepin, 47, has injuries to both legs and is hospitalized. However, the writer’s driver was killed.

According to preliminary data, an explosive device was placed under the car. Revenge of the Ukrainian resistance is considered the reason for the attack, according to sources from Russian security agencies investigating the event. The Investigative Committee of Russia opened criminal proceedings.

Prilepin is one of the most widely read writers in this country, and he made headlines in 2016, when he revealed that he had moved with his family to Donbas, where he was even the deputy commander of a special operations battalion created on his initiative that fought against the Ukrainian army. .

The nationalist was then an adviser to the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Alexander Zajárchenko, who was killed in 2018, and who awarded him the rank of major.

In the current Russian military campaign in Ukraine, the writer signed a contract with the National Guard and went to the front, his press secretary revealed to a Russian newspaper last January. Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Prilepin, who fought in violent conflicts in Chechnya and Dagestan in the mid-1990s, was the leader of the ultra-nationalist Za istinu party, which he founded in 2020 and merged with Russia a year later, in 2021. .

The writer was a member of the banned National Bolshevik Party. He later supported the extra-parliamentary opposition in their demand for the resignation of Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, he publicly announced that he stopped criticizing the Kremlin after the annexation of Crimea in March 2014.

Among his novels are Sinwhich received the National Bestseller award in 2008, one of the most prestigious in Russia, Sledge, Black jumpsuit or Purple.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Daria Dugina, daughter of the nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, and military blogger Vladlen Tatarski have been killed in attacks in Moscow and St. Petersburg.