May 08, 2023

Pro-war Journalist Targeted, Again


Pro-war Journalist Targeted, Again
The car of Zakhar Prilepin after the explosion. Povyornutye na Z voine, Telegram.

Pro-War journalist, writer, and politician Zakhar Prilepin's car exploded near Nizhny Novgorod while returning from the occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk. Prilepin's bodyguard, a former member of Russian battalions in Luhansk, Alexander Shubin, died, while the 47-year-old author was critically injured. Prilepin's daughter, who was also in the car, got out before the bomb exploded.

After leaving his job as a riot police officer for OMON (Special Purpose Mobile Unit), Prilepin joined a Nizhny Novgorod newspaper as a staff writer. Then, he published several acclaimed novels. Yet the author's oeuvre also includes the antisemitic essay published in 2012, "A Letter to Comrade Stalin."

Prilepin openly boasted of killing Ukrainians while volunteering as a soldier in Donetsk in 2017. Consequently, he was declared a terrorist by the Ukrainian government. A founder of the "For Truth" party, he has supported Russia's War on Ukraine since day one. 

The attack echoes that on pro-Kremlin journalist Darya Dugina in 2022. A bomb was planted on Prilepin's car while the politician was grabbing lunch with his bodyguard. 

Police have detained a suspect in Nizhny Novgorod. According to Izvestia, the man recently acquired Russian citizenship, but it has not been confirmed whether he is originally from Ukraine. Atesh, a military movement of Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars, and Russians, has claimed responsibility for the bombing via Telegram.

Meanwhile, Prilepin had announced he was running for president in 2024, raising eyebrows at the Kremlin. 

 

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