Zakhar Prilepin, a Russian writer who supports the invasion of Ukraine and was injured when his car exploded in Russia on Saturday, killing his assistant, said in a statement on Sunday that he “will not be intimidated”, AFP reported.

“Thank you to everyone who prayed, because it would have been impossible to survive such an explosion,” Prilepin wrote in a Telegram post, adding: “I tell the demons, you are not intimidating anyone. God exists. We will win.”

He honored the memory of his driver Oleksandr Shubin, who died during the explosion, writes Agerpres. “My dear friend, my protector for eight years, is dead,” he added.

Zakhar Prilepin also said that he left his daughter at home “five minutes before the explosion.”

Russia on Saturday accused Ukraine’s Western allies, and primarily the United States, of responsibility for “terrorist attacks” carried out on its territory by Kiev after an explosive attack that seriously injured Zakhar Prilepin and killed his driver.

An ardent supporter of the military offensive against Ukraine, in which he claimed to be participating, a successful writer translated in the West, and then a supporter of the ultra-nationalist line, Zakhar Prilepin (47 years old) was seriously injured in an explosion that practically destroyed his car on Saturday near Nizhny Novgorod, the third largest city in Russia, 400 kilometers east of Moscow.

Who is Zakhar Prilepin and his connection with Ukraine

A personality of the Russian literary scene, translated in many countries, Zakhar Prilepin has been working with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, in whose ranks he fought, since 2014, writes AFP. Moreover, according to EFE, in 2016 Prilyepin and his family moved to Donbas, where he even became the commander of a special purpose battalion created on his initiative, which fought against the Ukrainian army.

He became an adviser to Oleksandr Zakharchenko, the leader of the self-proclaimed DPR, who was killed in 2018, and who awarded him the rank of major.

Prilepin, who also fought in Chechnya and Dagestan in the 1990s, was the leader of the ultra-nationalist party For Truth, which he created in 2020, which merged with the Just Russia formation in 2021.

The writer was also a member of the banned National Bolshevik Party. Later, he supported the extra-parliamentary opposition, which demanded the resignation of Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, after Russia’s illegal annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea to Putin in March 2014, Prilepin publicly stated that he would no longer criticize the Kremlin leader.

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