RUSSIAN investigation revealed on Sunday that Darya Dugina, the daughter of influential, ultra-nationalist Philosopher, Alexander Dugin was killed by a car bomb on the outskirts of Moscow.
The Russian Investigative Committee said it believed someone planned and ordered the car explosion that killed Darya Dugina, based on evidence already collected from the blast.
“Taking into account the data already obtained, the investigation believes that the crime was pre-planned and was of an ordered nature,” the investigative committee said in a statement Sunday.
Dugina died at the scene after “an explosive device, presumably installed in the Toyota Land Cruiser, went off on a public road and the car caught fire” at around 9.00 p.m. local time on Saturday, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) outside Moscow, near the village of Bolshiye Vyazemy, according to the press service of the Russian Investigative Committee, as reported by state news agency TASS.
Dugina’s father is a Russian author and ideologue, credited with being the architect or “spiritual guide” to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He is purported to have significant influence over Russian President Vladimir Putin and was described as “Putin’s Brain” by Foreign Affairs magazine.
Both Dugin and his daughter have been sanctioned by the United States. The United Kingdom sanctioned Dugina in July for being “a frequent and high-profile contributor of disinformation in relation to Ukraine and the Russian invasion of Ukraine on various online platforms,” it wrote.
According to family members quoted by Russian media, Dugin — a vocal supporter of Kremlin’s offensive in Ukraine — was the likely target of the blast as his daughter borrowed his car at the last minute.
Dugina, a journalist born in 1992 who herself openly supported the offensive, died at the scene and a homicide investigation has been opened, said the committee, which probes major crime cases in Russia.
Alexander Dugin, 60, sometimes called “Putin’s Rasputin” or “Putin’s brain,” is an outspoken Russian ultranationalist intellectual.
He has long advocated the unification of Russian-speaking territories in a vast new Russian empire and wholeheartedly supported Moscow’s operation in Ukraine.
He was put on a Western sanctions list after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, a move he also backed.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing.
The head of one of Ukraine’s breakaway separatist regions blamed the blast on Kyiv authorities.
“The Ukrainian regime terrorists tried to liquidate Alexander Dugin, but blew up his daughter,” DNR chief Denis Pushilin wrote on Telegram.
A Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak denied that Kyiv authorities were behind the bombing.
“Ukraine surely doesn’t have anything to do with yesterday’s explosion because we’re not a criminal state,” he said in televised remarks.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram that “if the Ukrainian theory is confirmed… and it must be verified by competent authorities, it will amount to state terrorism on the part of the Kyiv regime.”
