A Russian pro-war author who was severely injured by a vehicle bomb on Saturday has been taken out of a medically-induced coma, according to his spokesperson.
Zakhar Prilepin, an ardent supporter of Russia’s campaign in Ukraine, was injured in the Nizhny Novgorod region of Russia while travelling. His driver perished.
According to investigators, a suspect named Alexander Permyakov has confessed to working for Ukraine.
Sunday, Prilepin’s spokesperson reported that the author was “feeling fine.”
“He is as cheerful as possible given the circumstances. He is healthy. “He conveyed his gratitude to his family,” his spokesperson Yelizaveta Kondakova was cited as saying by state media.
Governor of Nizhny Novgorod Gleb Nikitin wrote in a Telegram that the author’s condition was “stable” and that “his disposition is upbeat.”
Uncertain is the extent of Prilepin’s injuries sustained in the detonation, which also killed his driver.
Saturday, the Russian interior ministry reported that he sustained a concussion and fractures, but provided no additional information.
Prior to 2014, the prize-winning author and veteran of Moscow’s bloody conflicts in Chechnya was one of Russia’s most renowned authors and a vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin.
In recent years, however, Prilepin, who has long been associated with Russian ultranationalist politics, appears to have reconciled with Mr. Putin and become an ardent supporter of the Ukraine invasion.
The 47-year-old acknowledged fighting alongside pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and demanded the “return of Kiev to Russia.”
A group founded by Prilepin urged officials to “purge the cultural space” of all those who oppose the conflict in the previous year.
Alexander Permyakov is accused by Russia’s Investigative Committee (SK), which investigates severe crimes including terrorism, of detonating a remote-controlled bomb that destroyed Prilepin’s Audi.
The SK claims he was apprehended in a nearby village. The region is located more than 425 kilometres east of Moscow.
According to the SK, he “admitted carrying out a mission for the Ukrainian secret services.”
The Ukrainian and Crimean Tartar partisan organisation Atesh claimed responsibility for the assault on Prilepin.
“We had a feeling he would be blown up sooner or later,” they wrote on Telegram. “He was not driving alone, but with a surprise on the underside of the car.”
The BBC is unable to confirm Atesh’s claims.
The Ukrainian security service (SBU) issued its standard response, declining to comment on the attack or a claim by the Russian foreign ministry that Ukraine, supported by the U.S. government, had targeted Prilepin.
The attack is the most recent to target prominent supporters of President Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine conflict.
Last month, Vladlen Tatarsky was murdered. The blogger gained notoriety last year after posting a video recorded within the Kremlin in which he declared, “We will defeat everyone, kill everyone, and rob everyone as necessary. Just as we like it.”
Activist Darya Trepova, 26, was subsequently arrested and charged with terrorism after the release of a video – believed to have been recorded under duress – in which she acknowledged bringing a statuette to the café that subsequently exploded.
Darya Dugina, the daughter of a close ally of Mr. Putin, was murdered in a suspected car bombing near Moscow in August 2022.
It is believed that her father, the ultranationalist Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, also known as “Putin’s brain,” was the intended target of that attack.
