A man gets life in prison in Russia for a car bomb that wounded a writer

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian court has sentenced a man convicted over a car bombing that seriously wounded nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin to life in prison. Prosecutors said the May 2023 bombing in the Nizhny Novogorod region was conducted at the direction of Ukraine’s security services. Prilepin was seriously injured and his driver died in the bombing. The convicted defendant, Alexander Permyakov, is from Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and news report say he once fought with the Russian-backed separatists there. Prilepin was known for his vehement defense of both the Russia-backed eastern Ukraine rebels who rose up in 2014, and of Russia’s fighting in Ukraine that began in February 2022.