Daughter of ultra-nationalist Russian ideologue killed in suspected car bomb attack – investigators

(Reuters) -The daughter of an ultra-nationalist Russian ideologue who advocates Russia absorbing Ukraine was killed in a suspected automobile bomb assault exterior Moscow, Russian state investigators mentioned on Sunday.

Darya Dugina, daughter of outstanding ideologue Alexander Dugin, was killed on Saturday night after a suspected explosive machine blew up the Toyota Land Cruiser she was driving, investigators mentioned.

The Russian International Ministry speculated that Ukraine may need been behind the assault. Ukraine denied any involvement.

Russia’s TASS state information company quoted Andrei Krasnov, somebody who knew Dugina, as saying the automobile belonged to her father and that he was in all probability the supposed goal.

Father and daughter had been attending a competition exterior Moscow and Dugin had determined to change automobiles on the final minute, Russian authorities newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported.

TV footage accompanying a press release by Moscow area investigators confirmed officers amassing particles and fragments from the spot the place the explosion occurred.

The assertion, which described Darya Dugina as a journalist and political knowledgeable, mentioned investigators had opened a homicide case and can be finishing up forensic examinations.

Investigators have been contemplating “all variations” when it got here to figuring out who was accountable, it mentioned.

The pinnacle of Russia’s Investigative Committee ordered the establishment’s central department to take over the investigation.

“An explosive machine was positioned on the underside of the automobile on the motive force’s aspect,” the committee mentioned in a press release. “Darya Dugina, who was behind the wheel, died on the scene.

“The investigation believes that the crime was deliberate upfront and was of a contractual nature,” it added.

Maria Zakharova, Russia’s International Ministry spokeswoman, mentioned that if the investigation’s path led to Ukraine, then it will level to a coverage of “state terrorism” being pursued by Kyiv.

Ukraine denied involvement.

“I affirm that Ukraine, after all, had nothing to do with this as a result of we aren’t a legal state, just like the Russian Federation, and furthermore we aren’t a terrorist state,” mentioned Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, talking on Ukrainian tv.

He appeared accountable inner energy struggles between “varied political factions” in Russia for the killing, and urged the incident was the “Karmic” payback for supporters of Russia’s actions in Ukraine like Dugina and her father.

Alexander Dugin, Darya’s father, has lengthy advocated the unification of Russian-speaking and different territories in an unlimited new Russian empire.

He needs that empire to incorporate Ukraine the place Russian forces are presently finishing up what Moscow calls a “particular navy operation” to demilitarise Ukraine.

The affect of Dugin, who’s on a U.S. sanctions checklist, over Russian President Vladimir Putin has been a topic for hypothesis, with some Russia watchers asserting that his sway is important and others calling it minimal.

Darya Dugina, who additionally glided by the surname Platonova and was reported by Russian state media to be 30 years outdated, broadly supported her father’s concepts and appeared on state TV in her personal proper to supply help for Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

In a press release in March, the U.S. Treasury mentioned Dugina, the chief editor of the United World Worldwide web site, which has urged Ukraine would “perish” if admitted to the NATO navy alliance, had been placed on a U.S. sanctions checklist.

(Reporting by Reuters Enhancing by Frances Kerry)