TOP HEADLINES

• Prominent Russian nationalist writer, Zakhar Prilepin, was wounded in a car bombing that killed his driver on Saturday and investigators said a detained suspect admitted acting on behalf of Ukraine.

• Russia's Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine and Western states, particularly the United States, for the attack on writer Zakhar Prilepin, an ardent proponent of Moscow's military campaign in Ukraine.

• The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said on Sunday he had been promised overnight as much ammunition and weaponry as needed to continue a months-long assault on the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.

• Ukrainian air defenses shot down a Russian hypersonic missile for the first time during an attack on the capital Kyiv this week, the air force claimed, in a potentially major setback for the Kremlin's campaign of long-range air strikes.

• Air raid alerts blared for several hours overnight into early Sunday over roughly two-thirds of Ukraine, with officials saying that air defense systems shot down a number of drones, including one over Kyiv's airspace.

• The head of the UN's nuclear power watchdog, Rafael Grossi, warned that the situation around the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear station has become "potentially dangerous" as Moscow-installed officials began evacuating people from nearby areas.

• The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said on Sunday that residents in the Russian controlled area of the Zaporizhzhia region  are being evacuated in the direction of Berdiansk and Prymorsk on the coast of the Sea of Azov.

• Ukraine launched more than 10 drones overnight on the Crimean Peninsula, including three on the port of Sevastopol, a Russian-installed official said early on Sunday, adding that air defense systems repelled all the attacks on Sevastopol.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has not yet responded to proposals from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the Black Sea grain deal, TASS quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.

IN DETAIL

Russia blames Ukraine and U.S. for car bomb that wounded writer

A prominent Russian nationalist writer, Zakhar Prilepin, was wounded in a car bombing that killed his driver on Saturday and investigators said a detained suspect admitted acting on behalf of Ukraine.

The attack took place three days after the Kremlin said Ukraine attempted to hit the Kremlin with drones – Ukraine denied it had anything to do with the attack.

Russia's Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine and the Western states backing it, particularly the United States, for the latest attack on the writer, an ardent proponent of Moscow's military campaign in Ukraine.

Ukraine's security services, in its standard response, refused to confirm or deny involvement. A senior Ukrainian official accused Russia of staging the incident.

Russia's state Investigative Committee said Prilepin's Audi Q7 was blown up in a village in Nizny Novgorod region, about 250 miles east of Moscow, which it was treating as an act of terrorism. It said Prilepin had been taken to hospital.

The committee released a photograph showing the white vehicle lying overturned on a track next to a wood, with a deep crater beside it and pieces of metal strewn nearby.

The committee later issued a statement saying investigators were questioning a suspect identified as Alexander Permyakov.

"The suspect was detained and, in the course of questioning, he provided testimony that he acted on the instructions of the Ukrainian special services," said the statement, read by a woman in uniform.

The governor of Nizhny Novgorod region, Gleb Nikitin, said on Telegram that doctors had successfully operated on Prilepin and that he was now under sedation to help his recovery.

Russia's Foreign Ministry, in a statement on its website said: "Responsibility for this and other terrorist acts lies not only with Ukrainian authorities, but also their Western patrons, the United States in the first instance..."

It said Washington's failure to denounce this and other attacks was "self-revealing" for the U.S. administration.

State news agency TASS quoted security sources as saying the suspect was a "native of Ukraine" with a past conviction for robbery with violence.

Ukraine's SBU Security Service issued its standard response of declining to confirm or deny involvement in the bombing.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he believed Russian authorities had staged the attack.

"Everyone understands that this is all a staged performance," Podolyak told Ukrainian television. "This is staged and the bombings at the Kremlin are aimed at domestic audiences."

The novelist was the third prominent pro-war figure to be targeted by a bomb since the current conflict with Ukraine began in February 2022.

Russia has blamed Ukraine for the deaths of journalist Darya Dugina and war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in the two previous attacks, and Kyiv has denied involvement.

Ukrainian news site UNIAN ran an online poll asking readers who "in the pantheon of Russian scum propagandists" should be targeted next after Dugina, Tatarsky and Prilepin.

Officials at the White House, Pentagon and State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. No comment was immediately available from Britain's Foreign Office.

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