Darya Dugina, the 29-year-old daughter of Alexander Dugin, a philosopher, author and political theorist whom some in the West have described as “Putin’s mastermind”, died when an explosive planted in her SUV detonated as she was driving on Saturday night. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the main successor agency to the KGB, said Dugina’s assassination was “prepared and committed by Ukrainian special services”. In a letter of condolence to Dugin and his wife released by the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced Dugina’s “cruel and treacherous” killing, hailing her as a “brilliant, talented person with a real Russian heart — kind, loving , responsive and open.” Putin added that Dugina “sincerely served the people and the Motherland, proving what it means to be a patriot of Russia by her actions.” On Sunday, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak denied any Ukrainian involvement in the assassination. In Monday’s statement, the FSB accused a Ukrainian national, Natalya Vovk, of carrying out the killing and then fleeing Russia to Estonia.
Suspect left for Estonia, Russia says
The FSB said Vovk arrived in Russia in July with her 12-year-old daughter and rented an apartment in the building where Dugina lived to shadow her. He said Vovk and her daughter were at a nationalist festival, which Alexander Dugin and his daughter attended shortly before the murder. The agency reported that Vovk and her daughter fled Russia for Estonia after Dugina’s murder, using a different vehicle number plate as they left the country. In a statement released by a close aide, Dugin described his daughter as a “rising star” who was “deceitfully murdered by Russia’s enemies.” Alexander Dugin, the father of Darya Dugina, appears at an October 2014 rally in Moscow in support of the Russian-backed self-proclaimed separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. (Moscow News Agency/Reuters) “Our hearts yearn not only for revenge and retaliation, but it would be very petty, not in the style of Russia,” Dugin wrote. “We just need a win.” Dugin has been a prominent supporter of the concept of the “Russian world”, an intellectual and political ideology that emphasizes traditional values, the restoration of Russia’s global influence, and the unity of all Russians around the world. He has strongly supported Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and urged the Kremlin to step up its operations there. The explosion occurred as Dugina was returning from a cultural festival she had attended with her father. Russian media reported witnesses that the SUV belonged to Dugin and that he decided at the last minute to travel in another vehicle. The car bombing, unusual for Moscow since the turbulent 1990s, is likely to exacerbate tensions between Russia and Ukraine. On Sunday, Denis Pushilin, head of the Russian-backed separatist Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine, quickly blamed the explosion on “terrorists of the Ukrainian regime, who tried to kill Alexander Dugin.” While Dugin’s exact ties to Putin are unclear, the Kremlin often echoes rhetoric from his writings and appearances on Russian state television. He helped popularize the concept of “Novorossiya” or “New Russia” used by Russia to justify its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014 and its support for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. Investigators are seen Sunday working at the scene of a suspected car bomb attack that killed Dugina in the Moscow region. (Investigative Committee of Russia/Reuters)
Father, daughter hit by sanctions
Dugin, who has been sanctioned by the US and the European Union, has promoted Russia as a country of piety, traditional values and authoritarian leadership and has spoken disparagingly of Western liberal values. His daughter expressed similar views and had appeared as a commentator on the nationalist Tsargrad TV channel, where Dugin had served as editor-in-chief. Dugina herself was sanctioned by the United States in March for her work as editor-in-chief of United World International, a website the US described as a source of disinformation. The sanctions announcement cited a United Nations article this year that claimed Ukraine would “disappear” if it were admitted to NATO. In an appearance on Russian television just Thursday, Dugina said: “People in the West are living in a dream, a dream given to them by world hegemony.” He called America a “zombie society” in which people opposed Russia but couldn’t find it on a map.
