Suspected car bomb kills daughter of Russian nationalist known as ‘Putin’s brain’
The daughter of an influential Russian political theorist sometimes called “Putin’s mind” was killed in a automotive bombing on the outskirts of Moscow, authorities mentioned Sunday.
The Moscow department of the Russian Investigative Committee mentioned preliminary info indicated 29-year-old TV commentator Darya Dugina was killed by an explosive planted within the SUV she was driving Saturday night time.
There was no instant declare of duty. However the bloodshed gave rise to suspicions that the meant goal was her father, Alexander Dugin, a nationalist thinker and author.
Dugin is a outstanding proponent of the “Russian world” idea, a non secular and political ideology that emphasizes conventional values, restoration of Russia’s energy and the unity of all ethnic Russians all through the world. He’s additionally a vehement supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s transfer sending troops into Ukraine.
The explosion passed off as his daughter was getting back from a cultural competition she had attended with him. Russian media experiences cited witnesses as saying the SUV belonged to Dugin and that he had determined on the final minute to journey in one other car.
The automotive bombing, uncommon for Moscow, is prone to worsen tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
Denis Pushilin, president of the separatist Donetsk Individuals’s Republic, the pro-Moscow area that could be a focus of Russia’s combating in Ukraine, blamed it on “terrorists of the Ukrainian regime, making an attempt to kill Alexander Dugin.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denied Ukrainian involvement, saying, “We’re not a felony state, not like Russia, and positively not a terrorist state.”
Political analyst Abbas Gallyamov, a former speechwriter for Putin, known as the assault “an act of intimidation” aimed toward Kremlin loyalists.
To them, he mentioned, “it is a symbolic act, demonstrating that hostilities have been confidently transferred to the territory of Russia, which implies that that is now not an summary struggle that you simply watch on TV,” he mentioned. “That is already taking place in Russia. Not solely Crimea is being bombed, however terrorist assaults are already being carried out within the Moscow area.”
New Russia ideology
Whereas Dugin’s precise ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin are unclear, the Kremlin incessantly echoes rhetoric from his writings and appearances on Russian state TV. He helped popularize the “Novorossiya,” or New Russia, idea that Russia used to justify the 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and its assist of separatist rebels in japanese Ukraine.
He promotes Russia as a rustic of piety, conventional values and authoritarian management, and disdains Western liberal values.
His daughter expressed related views and had appeared as a commentator on the nationalist TV channel Tsargrad, the place Dugin had served as chief editor.
Dugina herself was sanctioned by the USA in March for her work as chief editor of United World Worldwide, a web site that the U.S. described as a disinformation supply. The sanctions announcement cited a United World article this 12 months that contended Ukraine would “perish” if it have been admitted to NATO.
In an look on Russian tv simply Thursday, Dugina mentioned, “Individuals within the West reside in a dream, in a dream given to them by international hegemony.” She known as America “a zombie society” by which folks opposed Russia however couldn’t discover it on a map.
Dugina, “like her father, has all the time been on the forefront of confrontation with the West,” Tsargrad mentioned on Sunday.
An unknown Russian group, the Nationwide Republican Military, claimed duty Sunday for the bombing, in keeping with a former Russian lawmaker, Ilya Ponomarev. The AP couldn’t confirm the existence of the group or its declare. Ponomarev, who left Russia after voting towards its annexation of Crimea in 2014, made the assertion to Ukrainian TV.