WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Russia blames Ukraine, U.S. for car bomb that wounded writer
A prominent Russian nationalist writer, Zakhar Prilepin, was wounded in a car bombing that killed his driver on Saturday and investigators said a detained suspect admitted acting on behalf of Ukraine.
The attack took place three days after the Kremlin said Ukraine attempted to hit the Kremlin with drones - Ukraine denied it had anything to do with the attack.
Russia's Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine and the Western states backing it, particularly the United States, for the latest attack on the writer, an ardent proponent of Moscow's military campaign in Ukraine.
Ukraine's security services, in its standard response, refused to confirm or deny involvement. A senior Ukrainian official accused Russia of staging the incident.
Russia's state Investigative Committee said Prilepin's Audi Q7 was blown up in a village in Nizny Novgorod region, about 400 km (250 miles) east of Moscow, which it was treating as an act of terrorism. It said Prilepin had been taken to hospital.
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 pieces of metal strewn nearby.
The committee later issued a statement saying investigators were questioning a suspect identified as Alexander Permyakov.
"The suspect was detained and, in the course of questioning, he provided testimony that he acted on the instructions of the Ukrainian special services," said the statement, read by a woman in uniform.
The governor of Nizhny Novgorod region, Gleb Nikitin, said on Telegram that doctors had successfully operated on Prilepin and that he was now under sedation to help his recovery.
Russia's Foreign Ministry, in a statement on its website said: "Responsibility for this and other terrorist acts lies not only with Ukrainian authorities, but also their Western patrons, the United States in the first instance...".
It said Washington's failure to denounce this and other attacks was "self-revealing" for the U.S. administration.
State news agency TASS quoted security sources as saying the suspect was a "native of Ukraine" with a past conviction for robbery with violence.
Ukraine's SBU Security Service issued its standard response of declining to confirm or deny involvement in the bombing.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he believed Russian authorities had staged the attack.
"Everyone understands that this is all a staged performance," Podolyak told Ukrainian television. "This is staged and the bombings at the Kremlin are aimed at domestic audiences."
The novelist 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 the two previous attacks, and Kyiv has denied involvement.
Ukrainian news site UNIAN ran an online poll asking readers who "in the pantheon of Russian scum propagandists" should be targeted next after Dugina, Tatarsky and Prilepin.
Officials at the White House, Pentagon and State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. No comment was immediately available from Britain's Foreign Office.
MOSCOW SAYS UKRAINE ACTING ON WEST'S BEHALF
It was the second time this week that Moscow has accused Ukraine of carrying out terrorist attacks on behalf of the West, a narrative it appears to be pushing with increasing urgency but which Kyiv and Washington reject as baseless.
On Wednesday, Russia accused Ukraine of trying to kill President Vladimir Putin with a night-time drone attack on the Kremlin. Ukraine denied that too, and the White House said accusations that Washington had a hand in it were "lies".
Prilepin often speaks out in support of the Ukraine war on social media, with more than 300,000 followers on Telegram and his own website and YouTube channel.
He fought for Russian proxy forces in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region before last year's invasion and led a military unit there, boasting in a 2019 YouTube interview that his unit "killed people in big numbers".
"These people are dead, they are buried and ... there are many of them," he said. "Not a single unit among the Donetsk battalions had such results. It was outrageous chaos what we did there ... Not a single field commander had such results as I had."
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
US responsible for Prilepin car bombing – Moscow
The US bears ultimate responsibility for the terrorist attack against Russian writer and political activist Zakhar Prilepin, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday. Killing ideological opponents, the ministry said, has become “the Kiev regime’s basic reflex.”
Prilepin, a journalist and novelist who fought in Ukraine in a Russian National Guard unit earlier this year, was seriously injured when a roadside bomb detonated as he drove past in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod Region earlier on Saturday. Prilepin’s assistant, who was behind the wheel, was killed.
A suspect apprehended near the scene of the blast told Russian investigators that he had been recruited by an unspecified Ukrainian intelligence agency in 2019, and admitted to planting two anti-tank mines beside the road and detonating them remotely as Prilepin’s car passed.
“The terrorist attack against Evgeny Prilepin is yet another demonstration of [Kiev’s] systematic approach to eliminating ideological opponents,” the ministry said in a statement, referring to Prilepin by his birth name.
“The responsibility for this and other terrorist acts lies on the Ukrainian authorities together with their Western patrons, mainly the United States, through whose efforts the anti-Russia project blended with neo-Nazism has been painstakingly nurtured in Ukraine since the coup in February 2014,” the statement read.
The ministry then described how enemies of the Ukrainian state are added to the ‘Mirotvorets’ (Peacemaker) database, with their personal details listed next to a description of their “crimes” against Ukraine. This ‘kill list’ is allegedly maintained by the Ukrainian security services, and includes Western journalists and politicians who have spoken favorably of Russia or condemned Ukraine and its government.
The ministry added that the list is “used by hired killers” to target Kiev’s enemies, and noted that Russia has repeatedly called on Ukraine’s Western supporters to have the list taken offline, which they have thus far refused to do.
“Time has shown that Washington and its satellites deliberately ignore this and other crimes of the Ukrainian authorities,” the statement continued.
As Ukraine’s largest financial backer and provider of intelligence, Russia contends that the US was ultimately responsible not just for the attack on Prilepin, but also the murders of nationalist writer Darya Dugina and military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, and the attempted assassination of Tsargrad TV founder Konstantin Malofeyev.
Moscow has also blamed Washington for a recent, albeit unsuccessful, drone attack on the Kremlin. “We know full well that decisions to carry out such terrorist actions are made not in Kiev, but in Washington,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday.
** Suspect in Prilepin bombing admits Ukrainian intel ties
The suspect in the bombing of the car carrying Zakhar Prilepin has admitted links to Ukrainian intelligence services, Russia’s Investigative Committee revealed on Saturday.
Prilepin, a prominent Russian writer and political activist, was targeted by a roadside bomb earlier in the day in the village of Pionersky, some 70km from the eponymous city, located some 400km to the east of Moscow. The blast killed Prilepin’s associate, who was driving the car, and left the writer critically injured.
The suspect, identified as 29-year-old Ukrainian-born Alexander Permyakov, was apprehended shortly after the attack while trying to escape the scene on foot. Locals alerted the police to the fleeing man, who was ultimately captured in a nearby village.
During questioning, Permyakov admitted having attempted to assassinate Prilepin, revealing he had been recruited by an unspecified Ukrainian intelligence service back in 2018. The Investigative Committee released a video of the questioning, with the suspect telling investigators he had planted two anti-tank mines on the side of the road and waited for Prilepin’s car to pass before detonating the explosives remotely.
The blast obliterated the engine compartment of Prilepin’s car, flipping the vehicle onto its roof. While the writer was critically wounded by the blast, his close associate, who was behind the wheel, was killed on the spot. The explosion left a large crater by the side of the road, and sent sizeable pieces of the car, including its gearbox, flying some 100 meters away, footage from the scene shows.
Prilepin was rushed to a hospital and underwent a successful operation after which he was sedated, the governor of Nizhny Novgorod Region, Gleb Nikitin, revealed without elaborating on the injuries. According to Russian media reports, citing eyewitnesses, the writer suffered fractures to both of his legs, and also reportedly received a spinal column injury.
Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened a criminal probe into the incident, treating the blast as a terrorist attack.
** Russian forces take control over 95% of Artyomovsk — Prigozhin
Russian forces control about 95% of Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) and the remaining 5% have no influence on the progress of the special military operation, Wagner PMC founder Yevgeny Prigozhin says.
"Almost 95% of the city territory has been captured in Artyomovsk to date. The remaining 5% does not play any role for the so-called development of progress and the march of the ‘Red Army’ further to the West. Two square kilometers do not influence the progress of the military operation at all," he said, cited by the Prigozhin’s press office in its Telegram channel.
Nobody communicated with him about the shortage of ammunition, Prigozhin said. "The personnel of Wagner PMC will be preserved for the next operations in interests of Russia," he noted.
The Wagner PMC founder also said he had no ambitions of leaving his mark as the person "that took Artyomovsk." "I have ambitions to be of service to our nation and state," he added.
Reuters/RT/TASS