A man was sentenced to life in prison by a military court in Moscow after being found guilty of attempted murder against Russian nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin with a bomb he placed in his car last year, reports the Interfax agency.
THE Alexander Permyakovwho has Russian and Ukrainian citizenship, according to Russian media, was immediately arrested following the May 6, 2023, attack near the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod, about 400 kilometers east of Moscow. As a result of the attack, Prilepin suffered broken legs, while his driver died.
Permyakov confessed to the crime, saying he acted on instructions from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which promised him a $20,000 reward for carrying out the work, Russian state media reported. The SBU refused to confirm or deny its involvement.
Who is Prilepin?
Prilepin, 49 years old, author of six novels, openly states on his website, YouTube channel or Telegram, where he has 300 thousand followers, that supports the war in Ukraine.
For years, he organized forces representing Russia in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine and led a military group there, boasting in a 2019 YouTube interview that the group “killed a large number of people.”
Prilepin is one of several famous pro-war figures in Russia who have been targeted in bombings.
Daria Dugina, daughter of extremist nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, was killed near Moscow in August 2022, by a bomb planted in the car she was traveling in, which many believe was aimed at her father.
In April 2023, well-known Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarksi was killed when a package delivered to him at a cafe in St. Petersburg exploded. In January, a 26-year-old woman was sentenced to 27 years in prison for transporting the bomb.
Sources: AMPE, Reuters
