Moscow: The daughter of an ultra-nationalist Russian ideologue who advocates Russia absorbing Ukraine was killed in a suspected car bomb attack outside Moscow on Saturday evening, Russian state investigators said.
Darya Dugina, daughter of prominent ideologue Alexander Dugin, was killed after a suspected explosive device detonated on the Toyota Land Cruiser she was travelling in, investigators from the Moscow region said in a statement on Sunday.
Alexander Dugin with his daughter Darya Dugina.
A family friend told Tass media that the Toyota Land Cruiser belonged to Dugin, who had intended to travel home with his daughter from an event but “went in a different way”.
TV footage accompanying the statement showed investigators collecting debris and fragments from the spot where the explosion happened.
Investigators, who described Darya Dugina as a journalist and political expert, said they had opened a murder case and would be carrying out forensic examinations to try to determine exactly what had happened.
They said they were considering “all versions” when it came to working out who was responsible for the crime.
Alexander Dugin, Darya’s father, has long advocated the unification of Russian-speaking and other territories in a vast new Russian empire.
He wants that empire to include Ukraine where Russian forces are currently carrying out what Moscow calls a “special military operation” to demilitarise Ukraine.
Dugin is believed to be an ally of Vladimir Putin and to have influenced the Russian president’s views. Some Russia watchers assert that his sway is significant and others call it minimal. Dugin was sanctioned by the US in 2015 for his alleged involvement in Moscow’s annexation of Crimea.
Darya Dugina, who also went by the surname Platonova and was reported by Russian state media to be 30 years old, broadly supported her father’s ideas and appeared on state TV in her own right to offer support for Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Dugina was sanctioned by the US and UK this year. The UK called her a “high-profile contributor of disinformation” about Russia’s war in Ukraine in her role as editor of the website United World International.
Reuters, Bloomberg
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