Prilepin, awake in hospital, describes assassination attempt

Writer and politician Zakhar Prilepin published his first social media post following a May 6 assassination attempt against him. He says that he was driving when his car exploded in the Nizhny Novgorod region.

The media are a bit mixed up. [My driver] Sasha was in the passenger seat. I was behind the wheel. The explosion happened under his wheel. I lost consciousness for three minutes or so, then woke up and crawled out the broken windshield. Villagers ran up and helped me get out. I broke both my legs (one is an open fracture) and got another injury.

He confirmed that he had dropped his daughter off five minutes before the explosion. Prilepin’s driver and bodyguard, Sasha, was killed.

“They told me there were two bombs. But this guy got scared and ran off immediately after the first went off. If the second had exploded, he would have killed everyone. They caught him,” Prilepin added.

After the assassination attempt on March 6, Zakhar Prilepin was airlifted to a hospital in the Nizhny Novgorod region and underwent surgery. On May 7, doctors brought Prilepin back from a medically induced unconscious state.

Russia’s Internal Affairs Ministry arrested a suspect, 29-year-old Alexander Permyakov, on May 6. The ministry says Ukrainian intelligence services and the West are responsible for the attack.