Russia blames Ukraine for killing ultranationalist’s daughter

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) on Monday accused Ukraine’s secret services of killing Darya Dugina, the daughter of a Russian ultranationalist, Russian news agencies reported.

Dugina, whose father is prominent ideologue Alexander Dugin, was killed on Saturday evening when a suspected explosive device blew up the Toyota Land Cruiser she was driving, Russian investigators said. Ukraine has denied involvement.

The FSB said the attack was carried out by a Ukrainian woman born in 1979, whom it named.

It said the woman and her teenage daughter had arrived in Russia in July and spent a month preparing the attack by renting an apartment in the same housing block and researching Dugina’s lifestyle, according to an FSB statement carried by Russian news agencies.

The assailant had attended an event outside Moscow on Saturday evening that Dugina and her father were also at, before carrying out a “controlled explosion” of Dugina’s car, and then driving to Estonia, the FSB was quoted as saying.

There was no immediate response from Kyiv to the FSB statement.

Alexander Dugin, Darya’s father, is an ultranationalist ideologue who has advocated violence to achieve the unification of Russian-speaking and other territories in a vast new Russian empire.

Darya, who appeared regularly on Russian state TV, broadly endorsed her father’s ideas and was a supporter of what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine, which Kyiv and the West cast as an imperial-style war of conquest.

Wednesday will mark six months since Russian troops crossed the border into Ukraine.

Dugin’s influence in Russia and proximity to President Vladimir Putin has been the subject of speculation. Some Russia watchers say he has significant influence over Moscow’s foreign policy and that he helped lay the intellectual groundwork for Putin to adopt a more aggressive and expansionist foreign policy. Others have said his impact and influence are minimal. The 60-year-old has never held an official Kremlin role.

Dugin did not respond to questions emailed to him on Sunday at an address listed on the website of the International Eurasian Movement that he founded.

Reuters