On Monday, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) released a statement identifying Bokhdan Tsyganenko as an alleged participant in preparing the car bomb that killed Dugina, according to the state-run TASS news agency. In their testimony, the FSB claimed he arrived in Russia via Estonia on July 30 and left the day before the attack. The FSB, the successor to Russia’s KGB, also accused Tsyganenko of preparing fake IDs and fake license plates for an alleged co-conspirator, Natalya Vovk, whom the Russians previously blamed for the deadly Aug. 20 attack. The FSB accused Tsyganenko of providing Vovk with forged documents under the name Yulia Zaiko, a citizen of Kazakhstan, to fly under the radar. The agency first identified Vovk as an alleged suspect in the hit just a day after the incident. In their initial report, the FSB accused the Ukrainian national of remotely detonating the bomb from her Mini Cooper after following Dugina to a cultural festival. Vovk was accused of bringing her 12-year-old daughter with her on the mission before fleeing to Estonia. Russia previously blamed “special services” in Ukraine for carrying out the attack, but said it was continuing to investigate those responsible. Ukraine denied involvement in the attack. The spate of allegations and the FSB’s attempt to quickly indict suspects in this case – when other murders years ago have not received nearly the same attention in Russia – are the latest indication of how closely the Kremlin monitors and protects its propaganda proxies. . The United States singled out Dugina as fanning the flames of Russian disinformation. In March, the Biden administration sanctioned her for running United World International, a Russian disinformation website backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s so-called “chef” Yevgeniy Prigozhin. Dugina’s father also ran a website dedicated to spreading disinformation. United World International has conducted multiple disinformation campaigns aimed at spreading anti-Western narratives using fake accounts, hiring writers to post on its behalf and posting about elections and conspiracy theories, according to Facebook, which initially began investigating the group based on an advice. from the FBI. United World International has described itself as opposed to a “unipolar” world, a goal that Russia has worked to promote in recent years and which has fueled part of its narrative for invading Ukraine, according to the Atlantic Council. The posts were linked to people who had worked as part of the Russian government’s disinformation arm, the Internet Research Agency, the group involved in meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. Dugin had also “actively recruited individuals with military and combat experience to fight on behalf of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic,” according to the US Treasury Department.
