Whose bomb killed the daughter of Putin ally?
Kyiv furious as Kremlin backers blame Ukraine for car blast ‘that was meant to target father’
THE daughter of an ultranationalist Kremlin ally known as Vladimir Putin’s ‘Rasputin’ has been killed in a car bomb on the outskirts of Moscow.
Darya Dugina, 30, died instantly when the Toyota Land Cruiser she was driving was ripped apart by a powerful explosion on Saturday night.
It is believed her father Alexander Dugin, thought to be the architect of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, was the intended target of the attack. The 60-year- old, who is also known as ‘Putin’s Brain’ and his ‘spiritual guide’ – as Rasputin was to the Romanovs in the early 1900s – had attended a culture festival with his daughter earlier that evening.
He was due to travel in the same car as Dugina but reportedly made a last-minute decision to switch vehicles. Moments later an explosive device planted under the driver’s side of the car went off, killing her instantly.
Investigators said the explosion, which sent the car careering into a fence in flames near the village of Bolshiye Vyazemy, was ‘premeditated and of a contract nature’.
Andrey Krasnov, a friend of Dugina, said the bomb was most likely meant for her father. ‘This was the father’s vehicle. Darya was driving another car but she took his car today, while Alexander went in a different way.’
He added: ‘The flames completely engulfed [the car]. She lost control because she was driving at high speed and flew to the opposite side of the road.’
Footage apparently from the scene showed the distraught Dugin with his head in his hands near the burning wreck. ‘He returned, he was at the site of the tragedy. As far as I understand, Alexander or probably they together were the target,’ Mr Krasnov added. It comes after proUkraine partisans stepped up attacks on Russian targets – including pro-Kremlin officials – in occupied parts of southern Ukraine and airfields in annexed Crimea.
This latest bombing is likely to further aggravate tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
Prominent pro-Putin supporters have been quick to blame Ukraine for the assassination, but Kyiv has strongly denied any involvement.
Former Putin adviser Sergei Markov said: ‘It’s completely obvious that the most probable suspects are Ukrainian military intelligence and the Ukrainian security service.’ Denis Pushilin, the pro-Kremlin leader of the self- proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, was among those to point the finger.
Posting a picture of Dugina on the Telegram messaging platform, Pushilin wrote: ‘Vile villains! The terrorists of the Ukrainian regime, trying to eliminate Alexander Dugin, blew up his daughter... in a car.
‘Blessed memory of Darya, she is a real Russian girl!’ Russian foreign ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said that if the investigation pointed to Ukraine, then it would equate to ‘state terrorism’.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to president Volodymyr Zelensky, furiously denied the claim, saying: ‘Ukraine has absolutely nothing to do with this, because we are not a criminal state like Russia, or a terrorist one at that.’
Dugin has vehemently supported Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as well as his annexation of Crimea in 2014.
‘I think we should kill, kill, kill [Ukrainians], there can’t be any other talk,’ Dugin ranted in support of separatists in 2014, making him one of the most hated Russian public figures in Kyiv.
A prominent proponent of the ‘Russian world’ ideology, he has long advocated for the unification of territories including Ukraine into a vast new Russian empire.
He has even called for Russian rule ‘from Dublin to Vladivostok’ using military means, disinformation and leveraging natural resources.
In 2015, Dugin was sanctioned by the US for ‘actively [recruiting] individuals with military and combat experience’ to fight on behalf of Russia-backed forces in Ukraine.
Putin is said to have been extremely taken with Dugin’s philosophy and has used it to help justify his invasion of Ukraine. His daughter Dug
‘Device planted under driver’s seat’
ina, joint author of a book on Putin’s war in Ukraine, broadly supported her father’s ideas and appeared on state TV to offer support for Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
She was sanctioned by the US in March for her work as chief editor of United World International, a website described by Washington as a disinformation site. The US cited an article this year that claimed Ukraine would ‘perish’ if it were admitted to Nato.
Dugina has said in recent interviews that she and her father were ‘on the same existential ship’. Using the familiar form of her name, Russian nationalist TV channel Tsargrad said yesterday: ‘Dasha, like her father, has always been at the forefront of confrontation with the West.’ Moscow investigators said her death was being treated as murder and forensics were being carried out.