Russia says bombing of military blogger is ‘a terrorist act’

By Mariya Knight

Russia has blamed the “Kyiv regime” and several Western nations for the bombing of military blogger Zakhar Prilepin’s car on Saturday.

The claim was made by a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, but she provided no proof for the allegation.

In reaction, the Security Service of Ukraine told the online newspaper Ukrainian Pravda that officially it could “neither confirm nor deny” its involvement “in this or that explosion that happens to the occupiers and their accomplices.”

Prilepin, whose Telegram channel has more than 300,000 subscribers, was hospitalized with a leg injury after the blast in the Nizhny Novgorod region, about 250 miles east of Moscow. His driver was killed.

The incident follows the death of another Russian military blogger last month. Russian also blamed Ukraine for that death, but Kyiv has previously denied any involvement.

The Russian Investigative Committee called the latest incident “a terrorist act” and said it plans to investigate the blast as such.

The committee also reported a suspect in the car bombing had been detained and during the interrogation testified “that he acted on the instructions of the Ukrainian special services.”

The suspect “planted an explosive device on the road along the route of Zakhar Prilepin’s car, which he set off remotely,” the committee alleged. “After that, he fled the scene, but was detained by law enforcement officers when he left the forest in another settlement.”

The committee published what they claimed was a video confession of the suspect but it was not clear under what circumstances he was interviewed or whether he was under duress in the video.

Russian pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia reported that Prilepin had surgery earlier on Saturday and is at the hospital in stable condition.

CNN has asked the Pentagon and UK’s Foreign Office for comment.

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