Russia: Car bomb kills daughter of man who shaped Putin

It was a last-minute decision - one that almost certainly saved notorious Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin’s life but at the cost of his daughter Darya Dugina.

Alexander Dugin was the likely target of the blast as his daughter borrowed his car at the last minute.

It was a last-minute decision, a friend said, and one that almost certainly saved Alexander Dugin’s life - but at the cost of his daughter’s.

The notorious Russian philosopher had spent the early evening at a conservative “family” arts festival in a quiet village outside Moscow, where he gave a lecture titled Tradition and History. He was about to get into his Toyota Land Cruiser with his daughter, Darya Dugina, when he decided to follow on behind in another vehicle instead - and handed her the keys to the Toyota.

Daria Dugina (R) with her father Alexander Dugin, sometimes referred to a ‘Putin's brain’.

Video images showed him standing at the side of a highway barely 20 minutes later, staring at the blazing wreckage of his car - which had been destroyed by a bomb exploding under the driver’s seat, killing the 29-year-old Dugina.

Dugin, an ultra-nationalist who helped to shape Vladimir Putin’s world view, is a keen supporter of the president’s war in Ukraine, as was his daughter, a pro-Kremlin activist.

Dugina died on a highway 30 miles west of Moscow at about 9.30pm on Saturday. “An explosive device allegedly installed in a Toyota Land Cruiser car went off at full speed on a public highway, and then the car caught fire,” the state investigative committee said in a report. “The female driver died on the spot. The identity of the deceased has been established: it is the journalist and political scientist Darya Dugina.”

Investigators said they had established that the bomb was placed on the bottom of the car, under the driver’s seat.

The incident prompted speculation that Dugin, 60, known to some as the Kremlin’s unofficial ideologue, or “Putin’s brain”, was the intended target of a Ukrainian assassination. “Darya was driving another car but she took his car today, while Alexander went in a different way,” a friend, Andrey Krasnov, head of the Russian Horizon social movement, told Tass news agency.

“She turned on to the Mozhaiskoye highway near the village of Bolshiye Vyazemi, there was an explosion, the car caught fire immediately. The flames engulfed it. She lost control because she was driving at high speed and flew to the opposite side of the road.”

Krasnov said that Dugina’s father was at the scene soon after the explosion, and the video images, posted online, showed him clutching his head in shock as he stared at the wreckage.

Aleksander Dugin at the scene.

Russian ultra-nationalist philosopher Alexander Dugin.

“As far as I understand, Alexander or probably they together were the target,” Krasnov added.

Dugin holds no official government position but is widely seen as having influenced Putin’s aggressive foreign policy. His ideology of “Eurasianism” is an imperial form of nationalism which sees Russia as a unique civilisation that has rejected liberalism and inherited the mantle of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.

Dugina was herself sanctioned by the US Treasury in March over an article on the United World International website claiming that Ukraine would “perish” if it were admitted to Nato. Britain sanctioned her last month as a “frequent and high-profile contributor of misinformation” on Ukraine.

Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst, said Dugin was in shock and was being treated in hospital, without giving details.

Andrei Klishas, a pro-Kremlin senator, expressed his condolences. “The terrorists must be destroyed, the contractors and those who ordered this, wherever they are,” he said.

Dugin’s name was added to western sanctions lists for his support of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Investigators work at the explosion of a car driven by Daria Dugina, daughter of Alexader Dugin, a hardline Russian ideologue close to President Vladimir Putin, outside Moscow.

WHY THE KREMLIN WILL BE WORRIED

With his flowing beard and swept-back hair, Alexander Dugin has the look of a prophet. A fluent English speaker with a strident tone, Dugin is one of the architects of Eurasianism, an imperialist ideology that stresses Russia’s special identity.

Analysts differ on the extent of his sway over President Putin, but his belief that Russia should gather its historical lands and rebuff the philistine influence of the West is evident in Kremlin thinking. To his mind, Ukraine is a cradle of Russian civilisation and Putin’s invasion an attempt to protect a way of life.

So far, the Kremlin has managed to muffle bad news from the conflict, including the high number of Russian deaths. But signs of trouble are emerging that are harder to explain away: blasts at an airfield in occupied Crimea; fires at military installations in regions bordering Ukraine. Darya Dugina’s death is being seen in a similar light.

An aide to President Zelensky denied Ukraine was involved, saying it was “not a criminal state like Russia”. But Ukrainian assassins may have taken the initiative without direction from above. That will trouble Moscow if it is seen as unable to defend its own territory and its citizens.

The Times