Ruh, pro-Putin writer jailed for life for assassination attempt

A Russian military court sentenced a man to life in prison on the 30th local time for attempting to assassinate prominent nationalist writer Zahar Prilepin with a car bomb, AP reported.

The man was arrested shortly after the crime in Novgorod, Nizhny, in northwestern Russia, on May 6 last year.

The driver was killed in a car explosion, and Frillepin suffered a severe fracture of both legs.

The arrested man is Aleksandr Fermiakov, who is believed to be from Donbas in eastern Ukraine.

A former newspaper journalist, Prilepin is a pro-Putin writer who has won the Tolstoy Literary Prize and has defended the separatist independence of pro-Russian forces in Ukraine and organized a rebel group made up of separatist forces in 2017 to engage with Ukrainian forces.

Russia's state-run Interfax news agency reported that Fermiakov confessed to committing the crime under the direction of Ukraine's security service and was promised $20,000 in return for the crime.

Supporters of the invasion of Ukraine in Russia have been targeted by bomb attacks.

In August 2022, Darya Dugina, the daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin's spiritual teacher, Aleksandr Dugin, was killed in a car explosion.

In April last year, Russian military blogger Vladlan Tatarsky was killed in an explosion at a cafe in St. Petersburg.