A prominent Russian nationalist has been left wounded in a car bombing that killed his driver.
Zakhar Prilepin has been rushed to hospital after his Audi Q7 became engulfed in flames on Saturday in a village in the Nizny Novgorod region, about 250 miles east of Moscow.
Russia has blamed the attack on both Ukraine and the West. The country’s state Investigative Committee is treating the explosion as an act of terrorism.
The committee released a photograph showing the white vehicle lying overturned on a track next to a wood, with a deep crater beside it and fragments of metal strewn nearby.
An interior ministry spokeswoman said a suspect had been arrested. Security sources told state news agency TASS that they had found an apartment in the Moscow region where they believe the bomb was assembled.
Prilepin, a novelist who is an outspoken champion of Russia’s war in Ukraine and has boasted of taking part in military combat there, was the third prominent pro-war figure to be targeted by a bomb since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022.
Russia has blamed Ukraine for the deaths of journalist Darya Dugina and war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in two previous attacks, but Kyiv has denied involvement. There was no immediate word from Ukraine on the latest incident.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram: “The fact has come true: Washington and NATO fed another international terrorist cell - the Kyiv regime.”
She said it was the “direct responsibility of the US and Britain”, but provided no evidence to support the accusation.
