Returning from a festival on Saturday evening, the intellectual known to encourage the annexation of Ukraine would have decided at the last moment to travel separately from his daughter. Investigators suspect a car bomb attack.
The daughter of the ultranationalist Russian ideologue Alexander Dugina staunch supporter of the invasion of Ukraine, was killed in an alleged car bomb attack on a highway near the village of Bolshiye Viaziomy, about 40 kilometers from Moscow, the Russian Investigative Committee said on Sunday in a press release. Darya Dougin was reportedly killed by the explosion of an explosive device placed on the Toyota Land Cruiser in which she was traveling, police officers from the Moscow region said in a press release.
According to relatives of the family, quoted by Russian press agencies, it was Alexander Dougin who was targeted by the explosion, Darya having borrowed his father’s car for this trip. According to local media, Alexandre and Darya Douguine were returning from a festival on Saturday evening, but the intellectual decided at the last moment to travel separately from his daughter.
Accused, Ukraine denies any involvement
Television footage shows investigators collecting debris and fragments from where the blast occurred. Other images, unverified and posted on Telegram, also appear to show Alexander Dugin in shock as emergency services arrive at the scene of the burning wreckage of a vehicle.
Police, who describe Darya Dougin as a journalist and political expert, said they had opened an investigation into “homicideand announced forensic examinations to try to determine exactly the circumstances. They are currently consideringall versionsto determine who committed the crime.
The leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), self-proclaimed pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, Denis Pushilin on Sunday accused Ukrainian forces of being behind the assassination of Daria Dugina. “Ukrainian regime terrorists tried to liquidate Alexander Dugin, but blew up his daughter“, he said on Telegram. “If the Ukrainian track is confirmed (…) and it must be verified by the competent authorities, it will be the policy of state terrorism put in place by the kyiv regime“, for her part reacted on Telegram the spokesperson for Russian diplomacy Maria Zakharova.
For his part, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mikhaïlo Podoliak, denied any Ukrainian involvement in this attack. “Ukraine definitely had nothing to do with yesterday’s explosion, because we are not a criminal state“, he affirmed, during a televised intervention.
An ambiguous role with Putin
Alexander Dugin has long advocated the unification of Russian-speaking territories into a vast new Russian empire. He wants that empire to include Ukraine where Russian forces are currently conducting what Moscow calls a “special military operation.” Dougin’s influence over Russian President Vladimir Putin has been the subject of speculation, with some Russian observers saying it is significant and others calling it minimal.
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Promoter of the “eurasist” doctrine, a sort of alliance between Europe and Asia under Russian leadership, Alexandre Douguine, who influences part of the French far right, has been targeted since 2014 by EU sanctions. taken in the wake of the annexation of the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula by Russia. In recent years, Ukraine has banned several of his books, including Ukraine. My war. Geopolitical Journal and Eurasian Revenge of Russia.
Darya Dugin, who also went by the surname Platonova and who Russian state media said was 30, widely supported her father’s ideas and appeared on state television on her own to offer her support for Russian actions in Ukraine. She has also been targeted by British sanctions since July, with London accusing her of disseminating “misinformation about Ukraine“.