25 Facts About Zakhar Prilepin

Yevgeny Nikolayevich Prilepin, writing as Zakhar Prilepin, and sometimes using another pseudonym, Yevgeny Lavlinsky, is a Russian writer, politician and paramilitary leader.

Zakhar Prilepin was a member of Russia's National Bolshevik Party from 1996 to 2019 and the leader of the national-conservative political party For Truth from 1 February 2020 until it merged into A Just Russia in February 2021.

Yevgeny Prilepin was born 7 July 1975 in the village of Ilyinka, Ryazan Oblast, in the family of a teacher and a nurse.

Zakhar Prilepin's family lived there until 1984, when they moved to Dzerzhinsk.

Zakhar Prilepin started working at age 16 as a loader in a bread shop.

Zakhar Prilepin graduated from the Faculty of Philology of the Nizhny Novgorod State University and the School of Public Policy.

Zakhar Prilepin worked as a laborer, a security guard, and served as a squad leader in the Russian police group OMON, and subsequently took part in the fighting in Chechnya in 1996 and 1999.

In 1999, due to financial difficulties, Zakhar Prilepin left OMON and got a job as a journalist at the Nizhny Novgorod newspaper Delo.

Zakhar Prilepin published under many pseudonyms, the most famous of which is Eugene Lavlinsky.

Works by Zakhar Prilepin were published in various newspapers, including Limonka, Literary Gazette, The Edge, General Line, as well as in the magazines North, Friendship of Peoples, Roman-gazeta, New World, Snob, Russian pioneer, and Russian life.

Zakhar Prilepin was the chief editor of the People's Observer, the newspaper of Nizhny Novgorod's National Bolshevik Party branch.

Zakhar Prilepin wrote a biography of Soviet novelist Leonid Leonov.

Zakhar Prilepin is a member of the ideological think tank the Izborsky Club.

Zakhar Prilepin was a member of the banned Russian National Bolshevik Party and a supporter of the coalition The Other Russia, and took part in the organization of the Nizhny Novgorod Dissenters' March on 24 March 2007.

In February 2017, Zakhar Prilepin gave a lengthy interview, in which he revealed that he was leading a volunteer battalion in the self-proclaimed People's Republic of Donetsk.

Zakhar Prilepin was an influential figure and a celebrity in the DNR and the concept of Malorossiya was seemingly created by him.

In late July 2018, Zakhar Prilepin returned "demobilized" to Moscow; the battalion he had served in was disbanded in September 2018.

Zakhar Prilepin boasted that the battalion had killed more Ukrainians than any other.

Zakhar Prilepin is wanted on terrorism charges in Ukraine, and was denied entry to Bosnia-Herzegovina for security reasons.

Zakhar Prilepin intended for the movement to be transformed into a political party that will participate in the 2021 legislative election.

Zakhar Prilepin strongly supported Russia's renewed invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In January 2023, Zakhar Prilepin signed a contract to join the Russian National Guard and fought in Ukraine for a second time.

In July 2012 Zakhar Prilepin published a short essay titled "A Letter to comrade Stalin", which provoked outrage and accusations of antisemitism.

On 6 May 2023, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, on the way to Moscow from the Russian-occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk, Zakhar Prilepin's car was blown up.

Zakhar Prilepin is married to Maria and has two sons and two daughters: Gleb, Ignat, Kira, and Lilia.