From: New Voice of Ukraine by Demian Shevko – World Affairs Editor and Correspondent at The New Voice of Ukraine (English), Research fellow at National Institute for Strategic Studies
A strange thing has happened in Putin’s Russia: one of the regime’s most loyal prophets has become its accidental heretic.
The loyal mythmaker who saw too much
Alexander Prokhanov — the aging ultranationalist novelist, editor, and chief ideologue of Russian imperial mysticism — has seen his latest book, Lemner, abruptly vanish from store shelves. It was printed, advertised, distributed across Russia, and then suddenly recalled. Bookstores received quiet instructions to return all copies. State television, which once glorified him, now pretends he doesn’t exist.
The reason is both banal and profound: Prokhanov’s fictionalized portrayal of Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Kremlin elite revealed power as grotesque, delusional, and decaying. Even without naming names, everyone recognized the shadows behind the characters — and in one of them, the unmistakable reflection of dictator Vladimir Putin himself.
Voice of Ukraine 