Daughter of Putin’s chief ideologue killed in car explosion – Ukraine denies involvement
“I think it’s absolutely legitimate to shoot at Russian targets in Crimea”
UN Secretary-General Guterres praises the grain deal and visits Istanbul, where deliveries are being checked. Meanwhile, Russian attacks on Ukrainian Independence Day are feared. “I think this expectation is absolutely plausible,” says ex-General Wittmann.
Alexander Dugin is regarded as the mastermind of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and some also as a source of ideas for the war in Ukraine. Now his 29-year-old daughter died when her car exploded. Ukraine rejects accusations that it is “not a terrorist state”.
BAccording to Russian investigators, the daughter of right-wing nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin was killed in a suspected assassination attempt near Moscow. “The identity of the dead has been clarified – it is the journalist and political scientist Darya Dugina,” shared the national investigative committee on Sunday in Moscow.
The 29-year-old was considered a fervent supporter of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. According to reports by Moscow media, she was on Britain’s sanctions list for spreading propaganda and false news about the invasion ordered by Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin on February 24.
According to investigators, Dugina’s car exploded on Saturday evening while driving in a suburban settlement in Moscow region. Investigators released a video of the experts working on site. According to initial findings, an explosive device was mounted on the vehicle, which detonated. There were videos of the burning vehicle on social networks. It will be determined in different directions, it said in the statement of the investigators. She left open whether the assassination attempt could have been aimed at Dugina’s father.
Dugin probably lent his car to his daughter
As reported by Russian media, citing family members, Dugina’s father was probably the actual target of the attack. He had loaned her the car, a Toyota Land Cruiser, for the trip.
The father of the dead, the radical author Dugin, is repeatedly described by the media and authors as a whisperer or as the “brain” of Russian President Putin and as a source of ideas for the attack on Ukraine. According to a report by the Russian news agency Interfax, Dugin and his daughter attended the patriotic festival “Tradition” together on Saturday, which is supported by a presidential foundation. “It was planned that father and daughter leave the festival together, but Darja drove alone in the vehicle,” says Interfax.
The attack sparked horror among Russian nationalists and pro-Russian forces in Ukraine. “The terrorists of the Ukrainian regime tried to liquidate Alexander Dugin and blew up his daughter… in the car,” wrote the leader of the separatist stronghold of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, on the Telegram news channel. Darja will be remembered – as a “real Russian girl”. Some commentators in Ukraine doubted that forces in the country attacked by Russia are currently capable of carrying out such an assassination.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak rejected Kiev’s participation. “Of course, Ukraine has nothing to do with yesterday’s explosion because we are not a criminal state – like the Russian Federation – and certainly not a terrorist state,” said Podoliak, according to the Ukrajinska Pravda Internet portal, during a television appearance on Sunday.