Zakhar Prilepin, a prominent Russian nationalist writer, was injured in a car explosion that killed his driver on Saturday, and officials said an arrested suspect admitted acting on behalf of Ukraine.

The assault occurred three days after the Kremlin claimed Ukraine intended to hit the Kremlin with drones; Ukraine denied any involvement in the attack.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry blamed Ukraine and its Western backers, mainly the United States, for the latest attack on the writer, who is an outspoken supporter of Moscow’s military war in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s security services, as is customary, refused to acknowledge or deny any involvement. A senior Ukrainian official claimed that Russia staged the incident.

The state Investigative Committee of Russia claimed Prilepin’s Audi Q7 was blown up in a village in the Nizhny Novgorod region, roughly 400 kilometres (250 miles) east of Moscow, in what it called a terrorist act. It stated that Prilepin had been transported to the hospital.

The committee shared a photo of the white car crashed on a track next to a wood, with a deep crater beside it and metal strewn about.

Later, the committee published a statement claiming that investigators were questioning a suspect named Alexander Permyakov.

“During questioning, the suspect provided testimony that he acted on the instructions of the Ukrainian special services”, claimed the statement, delivered by a lady in uniform.

Gleb Nikitin, the governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, stated that physicians had successfully operated on Prilepin and that he was now being sedated to aid his recovery.

The novelist was the third famous pro-war figure to be bombed since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.

Russia has blamed Ukraine for the killings of Darya Dugina, a journalist, and Vladlen Tatarsky, a war blogger, in the previous two strikes, while Kyiv has denied any participation.

After Dugina, Tatarsky, and Prilepin, the Ukrainian news site UNIAN asked readers to vote on who should be targeted next in the ‘pantheon of Russian scum propagandists’.

Requests for comment from representatives of the White House, Pentagon, and State Department did not immediately elicit a response. The Foreign Office of the United Kingdom did not respond promptly.

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