Russia blamed Ukraine for a car explosion that killed the daughter of Alexander Dugin, a Russian nationalist and fervent ideological ally of President Vladimir Putin, prompting Dugin to issue a statement calling for military “victory” as vengeance — an exhortation that could lead to an escalation in the war.
Russia blames Ukraine for car explosion that killed Putin ally’s daughter
Ukraine has denied involvement in the killing of Dugina, chief editor of a Russian disinformation website who was herself under U.S. sanctions. Kyiv also has warned about a spike in Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities ahead of the country’s Independence Day.
Russia’s internal security service, the FSB, claimed in a statement to Russian media that the explosion Saturday near Moscow was orchestrated by “Ukrainian special services” and carried out by a Ukrainian woman who allegedly carried out weeks of surveillance before the bombing, and then fled to Estonia with her young daughter after Sunday’s killing.
The Washington Post could not verify the FSB’s claims. Ukraine has suggested that the killing may have been the result of internal tensions within Russia and ridiculed the FSB version of the events.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, tweeted Monday that “Russian propaganda lives in a fictional world.” On Sunday, he said Kyiv “certainly had nothing to do with” the car bombing.
“Because we’re not a criminal state, like the Russian Federation is, and moreover not a terrorist state,” he said.
Shortly after the FSB statement, Dugin echoed the FSB allegations in his first comments since the explosion. “The enemies of Russia meanly, stealthily killed her,” Dugin said in the statement, in which he praised his daughter. “But we, our people, cannot be broken even by such unbearable blows. They wanted to crush our will with bloody terror against the best and most vulnerable of us. But they won’t.”
Dugin’s statement was issued in the form of a letter shared by Konstantin Malofeev, the owner of a nationalist, Christian Orthodox TV channel Tsargrad where Dugin is a chief editor, the ideologue said that Dugina’s death should “inspire” Russian soldiers to continue the onslaught in Ukraine.
Putin sent Dugin a letter of condolences saying that his daughter’s death was a result of “a vile, cruel crime,” according to the Kremlin which published the text.
“A journalist, scientist, philosopher, war correspondent, she honestly served the people, the Fatherland, and through her actions she proved what it means to be a patriot of Russia,” Putin said in his condolence message
Dugina, 29, was driving her father’s car from a festival outside Moscow that they both attended when the blast occurred, engulfing the car in flames. Some outside analysts and friends of the family suspect that Dugin, an ideologue who helped shape the Kremlin’s narrative about Ukraine, was the real target. Dugina had also strongly supported Putin’s war against Ukraine.
The FSB said the Ukrainian national and her daughter both attended the same festival and were renting an apartment in Moscow near where Dugina lived.
The claim that the woman escaped to Estonia comes amid tensions between Moscow and Tallinn over the Estonian government’s recent announcement that it would remove hundreds of Soviet monuments and its move to refuse entry to Russians with Estonia-issued Schengen visas.
Russia’s Investigative Committee is looking into the incident and has opened a murder case. It previously said early evidence pointed to “a murder for hire.”
Source: WP
