Daughter of Putin ally ‘killed in car bomb attack’

Moscow: The daughter of an ultra-nationalist Russian ideologue who advocates Russia absorbing Ukraine was killed in a suspected car bomb attack outside Moscow, Russian state investigators said.

Darya Dugina, daughter of prominent ideologue Alexander Dugin, was killed after a suspected explosive device detonated on the Toyota Land Cruiser she was travelling in, investigators from the Moscow region said in a statement on Sunday.

Ukraine has denied responsibility for the death of Darya Dugina, 29, in a car bomb attack.

Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main successor to the KGB, said Dugina’s killing was “prepared and perpetrated by the Ukrainian special services”.

The FSB said a Ukrainian citizen, Natalya Vovk, carried out the killing and then fled to Estonia.

Russia’s TASS state news agency quoted Andrei Krasnov, someone who knew Dugina, as saying the vehicle belonged to her father and that he was probably the intended target.

Her father is a philosopher, writer and political theorist who ardently supports Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to send troops into Ukraine.

In a photo taken from video released by Investigative Committee of Russia on Sunday, investigators at the site of an explosion of a car driven by Daria Dugina outside Moscow. Credit: AP

In a letter extending condolences to Dugin and his wife, Putin denounced the “cruel and treacherous” killing and added that Dugina “honestly served people and the fatherland, proving what it means to be a patriot of Russia with her deeds.“

He posthumously awarded Dugina the Order of Courage, one of Russia’s highest medals.

Father and daughter had been attending a festival outside Moscow and Dugin had decided to switch cars at the last minute, Russian government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported.

Alexander Dugin with his daughter Darya.

TV footage accompanying the statement showed investigators collecting debris and fragments from the spot where the explosion happened on Saturday evening (Moscow time).

Investigators, who described Darya Dugina as a journalist and political expert, said they had opened a murder case and would be carrying out forensic examinations to try to determine exactly what had happened.

They said they were considering “all versions” when it came to working out who was responsible for the crime.

Investigators were considering “all versions” when it came to working out who was responsible, it said.

The head of Russia’s Investigative Committee ordered the institution’s central branch to take over the investigation.

“An explosive device was placed on the underside of the car on the driver’s side,” the committee said in a statement. “Darya Dugina, who was behind the wheel, died at the scene.

“The investigation believes that the crime was planned in advance and was of a contractual nature,” it added.

Maria Zakharova, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said that if the investigation’s trail led to Ukraine, then it would point to a policy of “state terrorism” being pursued by Kyiv.

Ukraine denied involvement.

“I confirm that Ukraine, of course, had nothing to do with this because we are not a criminal state, like the Russian Federation, and moreover we are not a terrorist state,” said Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, speaking on Ukrainian television.

He appeared to blame internal power struggles between “various political factions” in Russia for the killing, and suggested the incident was the “Karmic” payback for supporters of Russia’s actions in Ukraine like Dugina and her father.

Darya’s father, has long advocated the unification of Russian-speaking and other territories in a vast new Russian empire.

In a statement, Dugin described his daughter as a “rising star” who was “treacherously killed by enemies of Russia.”

“Our hearts are longing not just for revenge and retaliation. It would be too petty, not in Russia style,” Dugin wrote. “We need only victory.”

He wants that empire to include Ukraine where Russian forces are currently carrying out what Moscow calls a “special military operation” to demilitarise Ukraine.

Dugin is believed to be an ally of Putin and to have influenced the Russian president’s views. Some Russia watchers assert that his sway is significant and others call it minimal. Dugin was sanctioned by the US in 2015 for his alleged involvement in Moscow’s annexation of Crimea.

Darya Dugina, who also went by the surname Platonova and was reported by Russian state media to be 30 years old, broadly supported her father’s ideas and appeared on state TV in her own right to offer support for Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

In a statement in March, the US Treasury said Dugina, the chief editor of the United World International website, which has suggested Ukraine would “perish” if admitted to the NATO military alliance, had been put on a US sanctions list. The UK had also sanction her, calling her a “high-profile contributor of disinformation” about Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Reuters, with Bloomberg and AP

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