The Federal Security Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation claims to have solved the murder of the daughter of Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin, of journalist Daria Dugin, and accuses Kyiv of the crime. “The crime was prepared and committed by the Ukrainian special services,” the FSB’s Center for Public Affairs (CSP) said on Monday, August 22.

The Russian intelligence service said that the perpetrator of the crime is a citizen of Ukraine Natalia Vovk. She is said to have arrived in Russia on July 23, accompanied by her minor daughter and, after the murder, left for Estonia via the Pskov region. In order to obtain information about Dugina and prepare the assassination attempt, Vovk installed himself in the house where the journalist lived, according to the FSB. At the same time, she allegedly entered the Russian Federation in a car with the numbers of the self-proclaimed “DPR” and left in a car with Ukrainian numbers.

In Kyiv, declared no involvement in Dugina’s murder

Earlier in Kyiv, they declared that they were not involved in the murder of the daughter of the ideologue of the “Russian world”. “I emphasize that Ukraine, of course, has nothing to do with this, because we are not a criminal state, which is the Russian Federation, let alone a terrorist state,” Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the Chief of Staff of the President of Ukraine, said in the air of the national marathon.

Thus, he refuted the accusation made by the head of the self-proclaimed “DPR” Denis Pushilin and a member of the Russian “administration” occupying the Zaporozhye region, Vladimir Rogov. Podolyak added that Dugina’s murder is evidence of the struggle for power and influence of various groups within the Russian Federation.

Dugin was included in the sanctions lists

Daria Dugina, who was involved in journalistic and social activities and supported the Russian war in Ukraine, died on the night of August 20 in the Moscow region as a result of a car explosion. The priority version was an attempted murder using an improvised explosive device. Dugina, who published under the pseudonym “Platonova”, was returning from the “Tradition” festival held at the Zakharovo estate, where her father taught.

It was originally planned that Alexander Dugin would ride in the same car with his daughter, but at the last moment he decided to leave the property in another car after her. Dugin was at the scene a few minutes after the explosion.

Alexander Dugin is known mainly as a publicist of predominantly right-wing views, and also as one of the most famous promoters of the ideologies of the “Russian world” and neo-Eurasianism – concepts according to which Russia should assume a dominant position in relation to its neighbors and extend their spheres of direct influence to mainland territories as far as the Balkans and the Middle East. In 2014, Dugin was fired from Moscow State University, where he was head of the sociology department, after calls to “kill, kill, kill” Ukrainians made in connection with the incident at the House of Trade Unions in Odessa. It has been included in Western sanctions lists. Daria Dugina, after the start of the Russian Federation’s war against Ukraine, was also included in the US and UK sanctions lists.