On Sunday, Denis Pushilin, head of the “Donetsk Republic” of the pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists, accused the Ukrainian forces of being behind the assassination of Daria Dugin, the daughter of a Russian intellectual close to the Kremlin.
“The terrorists of the Ukrainian regime tried to liquidate Alexander Dugin, but they blew up his daughter,” Pushilin said on Telegram.
“If the Ukrainian involvement is confirmed (…) and it must be verified by the relevant authorities, it will be related to the state terrorism policy implemented by the Kyiv regime,” wrote a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, on Telegram, according to AFP.
Russian news agencies quoted close to the family as saying that the hard-line nationalist thinker and writer, Alexander Dugin (60 years), was the one who was targeted in the explosion, explaining that Daria had borrowed her father’s car for her transportation this time.
The daughter of the Russian writer, close to the Kremlin and defender of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, was killed on Saturday evening in the explosion of her father’s car, Alexander Dugin, in the Moscow region, the Russian Investigative Committee announced in a statement on Sunday.
Daria Dugin, a journalist and political analyst who has also publicly expressed support for Russia’s attack on Ukraine, was driving a Toyota Land Cruiser when it exploded before it caught fire, on a highway near the village of “Bolshi Vyazyumi”, 40 km from Moscow, according to the statement.
A Land Cruiser Prado carrying the daughter of famed Rashist ideologist Alexander Dugin was blown up near Moscow.
The explosion occurred near the village of Bolshiye Vyazemi. Dugin’s daughter Daria died on the spot. pic.twitter.com/KFwOxUVcic
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) August 20, 2022
The statement indicated that the young woman, born in 1992, was “killed on the spot.”
The investigators stated that an explosive device had been planted in the car and that there was reason to believe that “the crime was planned in advance.”
An investigation was opened into a “murder”, she added, as the commission responsible for the country’s main criminal investigations.
Since 2014, the European Union has imposed sanctions on the promoter of the Eurasian Movement (a coalition between Europe and Asia under Russian leadership), Alexandre Dugin, who influences part of the French far-right, following the annexation of Crimea by Russia.
Several of his books have been banned by Ukraine in recent years, including “Ukraine. My Battle. A Geopolitical Diary” and “Russia’s Eurasian Revenge”.
Daria Dugin has been targeted by British sanctions since last July, accusing her of spreading “misleading information about Ukraine” on the Internet.