Darya Dugina, the daughter of Russian ultra-nationalist commentator Aleksandr Dugin, was killed in a car bombing attack just outside Moscow last Saturday, in what is being reported as an attempted assassination on Dugin himself. Ms Dugina shared her father’s far-right political views, and both were highly supportive of the war in Ukraine.
Dugin is a proponent of National Bolshevism, whose followers are often referred to as “NazBols” for their combination of communist and ultranationalist views. He has founded two political parties based on this school of thought. The first, named the “National Bolshevik Party”, was banned by Russian courts in 2010 The second, named the “Eurasia Party”, still operates in Russia, and espouses Neo-Eurasian ideology, the belief that Russia is destined to form a Eurasian empire centred around itself, and wage war against the United States and its allies. It is widely considered a form of fascist ideology.
Dugin’s exact level of influence over Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin is disputed, but he has earned the nickname “Putin’s brain” from some parts of the Russian media. His daughter Darya was a political activist in her own right, sanctioned by the US and UK governments for her journalism in Kremlin-backed media outlets spreading disinformation supporting the war in Ukraine. She was a loyal supporter of Russia’s invasion, and had frequently suggested that Russian war crimes against Ukrainian civilians were staged.
The Russian security forces, FSB, have predictably blamed Ukraine for the attack. They say a Ukrainian operative and her 12 year-old daughter were present at the festival at which Ms Dugina was killed. The operative, named by the FSB as a member of Ukraine’s Azov regiment, was reported to have moved into the same apartment block as Ms Dugina in July, and followed her around Moscow in a Mini Cooper, photographed with multiple licence plates. After Ms Dugina’s death, the operative and her daughter are said to have fled over the border to Estonia.
The evidence supporting the FSB’s accusations was released in just over a day of the bombing. A few hours after she was killed, Russian President Putin posthumously awarded Ms Dugina the Order of Courage. The fact that this alleged assassination was reportedly solved by the FSB in record time, when there are years-old assassinations of Putin’s political opponents that have yet to be solved shows at least a disregard to solve crimes that are politically beneficial to Putin, and at most, an involvement of the FSB in the crimes themselves. Boris Nemtsov, one of Putin’s most outspoken opponents, was shot dead in 2015. The only people who were found to have any connection to the killing confessed under torture, and later retracted their statements.
Whilst Ms Dugina’s death is regrettable, and violence should never become an answer to political disputes, she will not be mourned in Ukraine. Russia seems like it is doing all in its power, no matter how strenuous the connections, to make Ukraine look like the aggressor on the international stage. Ukraine doesn’t need to make such efforts, as Russia is making itself look bad without any assistance.
Ms Dugina’s death has drawn more attention to her father and his extreme views, and will undoubtably lead to retaliation from Russia against Ukraine. An attack like this is not in Ukriane’s interest, therefore I doubt Ukraine is behind Ms Duniga’s death. This attack has only stoked the fires of resentment between Ukraine and Russia; to Russia’s benefit, but against Ukraine’s.