Darya Dugina | |
|---|---|
Дарья Дугина | |
.jpg) Dugina in 2022 | |
| Born | Darya Aleksandrovna Dugina (1992-12-15)15 December 1992 Moscow, Russia |
| Died | 20 August 2022(2022-08-20) (aged 29) Bolshiye Vyazyomy, Odintsovsky District, Moscow Oblast, Russia |
| Cause of death | Car bombing |
| Other names | Daria Platonova |
| Alma mater | Moscow State University |
| Occupations |
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| Parents |
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| Awards | Order of Courage (posthumous) |
Darya Aleksandrovna Dugina (Russian:Дарья Александровна Дугина; 15 December 1992 – 20 August 2022), also known under thepen nameDaria Platonova (Russian:Дарья Платонова), was a Russian journalist, political scientist,[1] and activist. She was the daughter ofAleksandr Dugin, afar-right political philosopher, whose political views and support forVladimir Putin she shared.[2][3][4]
She was killed in August 2022 in acar bombing on the outskirts of Moscow.[5] Later,Vasyl Malyuk, the head of theSecurity Service of Ukraine (SBU), indirectly confirmed Ukraine's involvement in the assassination.[6][7]
Darya Dugina was born on 15 December 1992 in Moscow, Russia.[8] She was the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin and his second wife, philosopher Natalya Melentyeva.[9] In 2012/2013, while studying atMoscow State University, she was an intern atBordeaux Montaigne University, specializing inAncient Greek philosophy.[10] Her MSU degree "focused on the political philosophy of lateNeo-Platonism".[11] She was in aPhD program, but she left the university before completing her degree.[12][13]
After university, she worked as a journalist, writing for the state-controlled media outletRT and the pro-Kremlin conservative channelTsargrad, using the pen name Daria Platonova.[8][14] She was affiliated with theInternational Eurasian Movement, and worked for them as a political commentator.[15][16]
According to theUnited States Department of the Treasury, which added her to theSpecially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List on 3 March 2022, she was the chief editor of a disinformation website called United World International which states it was owned by Putin allyYevgeny Prigozhin, who also controlled the state-backedWagner Group.[17][18][19][20] At the same time, she served as a press secretary of her father.[10]
Dugina was an outspoken supporter of theRussian invasion of Ukraine. In particular, she claimed that thewar crimes against Ukrainian civilians by theRussian army during the invasion were staged.[21][22] She mentioned that the war in Ukraine "serves to break the bridges of interaction between Russia and Europe, a struggle between two worldviews."[23] In June 2022, she visited occupiedDonetsk andMariupol.[14]
Dugina visited theAzovstal plant in Mariupol, where she collaborated with British journalistGraham Phillips, who also worked for Russian state media.[24] On 4 July 2022, she was sanctioned by theBritish government, which accused her of being a "frequent and high-profile contributor of disinformation in relation to Ukraine and the Russian invasion of Ukraine on various online platforms."[25][26][14][27] She responded by saying that she is an ordinary journalist and should not have been sanctioned.[10]
| Killing of Darya Dugina | |
|---|---|
| Location | 55°37′48″N36°59′06″E / 55.629880°N 36.985060°E /55.629880; 36.985060 Bolshiye Vyazyomy, Odintsovsky District, Moscow Oblast, Russia |
| Date | 20 August 2022; 3 years ago (2022-08-20) c. 21:45 (MSK) |
| Target | Aleksandr Dugin, or Darya Dugina, or both[28] |
Attack type | Car bomb |
| Perpetrators | |
Dugina was killed on 20 August 2022, when her car exploded on Mozhayskoye Highway in the settlement ofBolshiye Vyazyomy outside Moscow around 21:45 local time.[2][34] She was driving to Moscow after attending the annual festival "Tradition," which describes itself as a family festival for art lovers.[2]
The "Tradition" festival is held at the Zakharovo estate,[2] approximately one kilometre (1⁄2 mi) north of Bolshiye Vyazyomy. Investigators said anexplosive device was attached to the underside of the car.[35] It is unclear whether she was targeted deliberately, or whether her father, who had been expected to travel with her but switched to another car at the last minute, was the intended target,[2] or whether the intention might have been to kill both.[36]
On 22 August, the RussianFederal Security Service (FSB) claimed thatUkrainian special services were behind the killing, alleging that their primary suspect was Natalia Vovk, a middle-aged female Ukrainian national who escaped toEstonia after the explosion.[37][38] The suspect's relatives said that she was a former clerk in theNational Guard of Ukraine.[39] According to the FSB, after arriving with her daughter in Russia the previous month the Ukrainian rented an apartment in the building where Dugina lived, and she was at the festival which Dugina attended before being killed.[40] The FSB also released surveillance footage from cameras at the entrance of the apartment building and at the border crossing points, purportedly showing the suspect, and said that she drove aMini Cooper. The FSB allege she used alicense plate from the Donetsk People's Republic, then switched to aplate from Kazakhstan and then used aplate from Ukraine to cross theborder to Estonia.[40]
Interfax later reported that the FSB named an accomplice, a middle-aged male Ukrainian national, as providing logistical assistance to the primary assassin. Specifically, the FSB alleged that the accomplice provided the primary suspect with their false license plates and aKazakhstani passport, and assisted in bomb assembly while in Russia. The FSB further alleged that the accomplice had also escaped to Estonia.[41] The name of the alleged accomplice was released by FSB on 29 August 2022.[42]
The later Interfax report elaborated the FSB assertion, that the primary assassin tailed Dugina in the parking lot for guests at the "Tradition," followed Dugina'sLand Cruiser in her own Mini Cooper, and detonated the bomb via remote control.[41] It has been impossible to independently verify any of the claims made by the FSB, as Russia has partially criminalized disagreement with the official narrative of the killing and the war in Ukraine in general, and has made independent verification more difficult.[43]
On 23 October 2023,The Washington Post reported that theSecurity Service of Ukraine (SBU) had carried out dozens of assassinations in Russia since the invasion began, including the bomb attack that killed Darya Dugina, which Ukraine had previously denied.[31] Ukrainian Natalia Vovk, whose name appeared in the reports of Russian law enforcement officers, imported components of an explosive device into Russia in a cat carrier. TheCIA did not comment on the article. The head of the SBU,Vasyl Malyuk, said that all the objectives of his department's operations were completely legitimate.[44]
Ilya Ponomarev, a former member of Russia'sState Duma living in exile in Ukraine, said that a Russianpartisan group was responsible for the attack, and that the hitherto unknown group calls itself theNational Republican Army (NRA).
Ponomarev said the NRA is an underground group working inside Russia, dedicated to removing Putin from power.[45] He later said it is a "network" ofclandestine cells.[46] Ponomarev told theKyiv Post the group previously carried out anonymous arson attacks on military induction centers, then shifted to targeting Dugin and Dugina as "something high-profile for which they could become well known." He said that a contact in the group told him a week before the assassination to expect "something big," followed by instructions on the day of the event to "watch the news." Following news coverage of the assassination, Ponomarev said that he was provided evidence of the group's responsibility.[47]
Ponomarev added that his sources believed two persons (i.e., both Dugin and Dugina) were in the targeted car.[48] From Ponomarev's statement, it is unclear whether she was targeted deliberately, or whether her father was the intended target, or whether the intention might have been to kill both.[36] Ponomarev gave a similar account to Radio NV (Ukrainian:Радіо НВ), adding that his contacts "sent certain photos to prove their involvement."[49]
Along with the claim of responsibility for the assassination, Ponomarev aired the organization's manifesto on his media outlet "February Morning" (Russian:Утро Февраля) and hailed it as "a new page in Russian resistance toPutinism. New—but not the last."[46] Later confronted with the news of theFSB's accusation of Ukrainian involvement, Ilya Ponomarev told theMeduza news outlet that his purported sources in the National Republican Army deny the claimed Ukrainian being the perpetrator while leaving ambiguous whether she may have had a role.[48] In bothMeduza and a message to his Telegram channel "Rospartisan" (Russian:Роспартизан), Ponomarev appeared to take credit for her exfiltration from Russia at the request of unnamed "friends".[50] Following his announcement of support for the assassination and the NRA, Ponomarev said that he was disinvited from a planned meeting of Russian dissidents.[46]
As of 21 August 2022[update],Associated Press andThe Guardian articles concerning the death of Dugina and its aftermath state that the claim of a National Republican Army responsibility cannot be confirmed.[51][52] A 22 August 2022 report fromReuters says that "Ponomarev's assertion and the group's existence could not be independently verified."[53]
In an interview with Ponomarev forMeduza, both the interviewer Svetlana Reiter and the editor note skepticism about his claims about the Russian NRA, his accommodations of Putin in his Duma career, and the source of his wealth.[54][55] Separately,Meduza managing editor Kevin Rothrock questioned Ponomarev's integrity, the existence of the NRA, and implied that both Dugin and Dugina were civilians who should not have been targeted.[56] Citing the livestream ofYulia Latynina,Cathy Young discussed the possibility that Ponomarev is a "agrifter trying to sell a good story", but said that the NRA manifesto's appeal to patriotism is not suggestive ofblack propaganda.[57]
Sergey S. Radchenko, a professor at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at theJohns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, toldDeutsche Welle he found the claim of responsibility and manifesto to both be "dodgy."[58] Deutsche Welle's reporter in Kyiv Roman Goncharenko said, "there are more questions than answers" about the group, and noted that the group's purported manifesto employs acall to action "fight like us, fight with us, fight better than us!" (Russian:боритесь как мы, боритесь вместе с нами, боритесь лучше нас!,romanized: borites kak my, borites vmeste s nami, borites luchshe nas!) inspired by theDeutscher Fernsehfunk children's television showDo with us, do as we do, do better than us! [de;ru] that aired in bothEast Germany and the Soviet Union until 1991.[59]
Matthew Sussex ofAustralian National University's National Security College wrote that "very few observers believe the hitherto-unknown National Republican Army, which claimed responsibility for the killing, was to blame. But if it were, then it points to the real possibility of organised domestic terrorism in Russia."[60] InThe New Yorker,Masha Gessen mused that "either the National Republican Army is a new group using terrorist tactics, and it killed Dugina to show what it's capable of; or this is, in effect, a marketing move, a rush to take credit. In either case—whether the National Republican Army is real or fictional—this version is probably inching closer to the truth."[61]
The Ukrainian government denied any involvement, with Ukrainian presidential advisorMykhailo Podolyak stating that "we are not a criminal state like the Russian Federation, much less a terrorist one",[62][63][64] and later blaming the killing on infighting between Russian security agencies.[40] While refusing to give comment on the assassination itself, the spokesman for theChief Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine toldThe Washington Post that "I can say that the process of internal destruction of the 'Russky Mir,' or 'the Russian world,' has begun", and predicted that "the Russian world will eat and devour itself from the inside."[65]
TheMinister of Foreign Affairs for Estonia,Urmas Reinsalu, said that the claim that Dugina's assassin fled to safe harbor in Estonia was "[one] provocation in a very long line of provocations by the Russian Federation"[66] and rejected the claim that Dugina's alleged killer had fled to Estonia.[33] Reinsalu and the Ministry urged Estonians to avoid travel to Russia, and advised those on short term travel in Russia to hasten their exit.[67] In statements toThe New York Times,law enforcement in Estonia said that Russia had notrequested their assistance.[68]
According to an assessment by theUnited States Intelligence Community reported byThe New York Times on 5 October 2022, officials believe that parts of the Ukrainian government authorized the killing, with some US officials suspecting that Aleksandr Dugin was the intended target, albeit with Darya Dugina also being in the car.[30] American officials also admonished Ukrainian officials over the killing, it reported, and said that they were not aware of the operation.[69][70]
On 21 August 2022, exiled former parliamentarianIlya Ponomarev, via services read aloud a manifesto of the NRA calling for armed action against the regime and endorsed both the assassination and the manifesto.[71][72] The following day, the anti-Putin exile group theRussian Action Committeeblacklisted Ponomarev from attending the Free Russia Congress on grounds that he had "called for terrorist attacks on Russian territory." The committee's statement also implied that Dugina was a "civilian" who "did not take part in the armed confrontation," and similarly condemned the mockery of Alexandr Dugin following the attack as "a demonstrative rejection of normal human empathy for the families of the victims."[73][74]
Dugina's father,Aleksandr Dugin, called the killing a "terrorist act executed by the Nazi Ukrainian regime" and wrote that "we need only our victory."[75] Russian presidentVladimir Putin sent a message of condolences to the family of Dugina, describing her as a "bright, talented person with a real Russian heart."[76] Putin posthumously awarded Dugina theOrder of Courage.[77] The head of the Kremlin-recognized breakawayDonetsk People's Republic,Denis Pushilin, claimed that Ukrainian authorities were behind the explosion.[78]
In the immediate aftermath of the assassination, the United States-government backed Ukrainian news serviceSvoboda.org gathered various perspectives from Russian-language social media. They included a round-up of reactions from pro-regime figures including formerNational Bolshevik Party memberZakhar Prilepin blaming Ukrainians (and calling for grenade attacks in reprisal);Aleksey Chadayev [wd] blaming Poles;Yegor Kholmogorov,Darya Mitina,Yevgeny Primakov Jr. attributing the death to Westerners in general; andAlexander Ryklin [wd] blamingAlexei Navalny.[79]
The same compilation included responses from opponents and critics of Putin.Dmitry Gudkov wrote of the event as a "boomerang" (Russian:бумеранг) for Dugin's warlike rhetoric.Maria Baronova observed that since the outbreak of the "special military operation" assassinations were shifting from cloaked poisonings back to openly violent means, and recalled wry advice from the 1990s to avoid expensive cars.Grigorii Golosov theorized that the attack was meant for Darya Dugina (and not her father) to provide an appealing martyr for anti-Ukraine hawks, though he stressed that he would refrain from guessing whom these hawks are.Alexander Nevzorov wrote that neither Dugin nor Dugina were important, but noted the assassination had created fear among Putin's circles.[79]
On 23 August,United Nations spokespersonStéphane Dujarric called for an investigation into Dugina's killing.[80]Pope Francis condemned the killing of Darya Dugina and mentioned it as an example of the "madness of war," called Dugina "an innocent victim."[81][82] The statement was strongly criticized by theUkrainian ambassador to theHoly See Andrii Yurash,[83][84][85] and the UkrainianMinistry of Foreign Affairs summoned theApostolic Nuncio in Ukraine ArchbishopVisvaldas Kulbokas for explanations on the issue.[86][87] In a statement toVatican News, the Holy See clarified that the Pope's words were to be interpreted as a defense of human life, not as a political defense of Dugina, noting that Francis has repeatedly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[88]
InThe Conversation, Matthew Sussex ofAustralian National University's National Security College wrote: "any way you cut it, the killing of Darya Dugina brings Putin's own leadership into question. This is something he has scrupulously avoided. He is obsessed with control, and enjoys the support of a massive propaganda machine to turn defeats into triumphs and blame others for his mistakes."[60] French magazineÉléments, organ of theethno-nationalistthink tankGRECE, published a lengthy tribute to both. IdeologueAlain de Benoist called Dugina's death "an act of war".[89]
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On 23 August 2022, a farewell ceremony for Dugina was held at a TV studio in Moscow'sOstankino Tower, where she waslying in state; it was attended, among others, by far-right party leaderLeonid Slutsky, propagandistDmitry Kiselyov, and "Putin's chef," government and military contractorYevgeny Prigozhin, leader ofA Just Russia — For TruthSergey Mironov,Deputy Chairman of theState DumaSergey Neverov,National Bolshevik writer and activistZakhar Prilepin, the head of the State televisionRossiya SegodnyaDmitry Kiselyov,Governor of Khabarovsk KraiMikhail Degtyarev, ultra-conservative oligarchKonstantin Malofeev and Vladimir Putin's representativeIgor Shchyogolev.[90] On the same day, the RussianPresidentVladimir Putinposthumously awarded her with theOrder of Courage for "courage and selflessness shown in the performance of her professional duty."[91][92]
Dugina's funeral was held in the Church of St Michael the Archangel inMikhailovskaya Sloboda [ru] inRamensky District of Moscow Oblast; the ceremony was presided byMetropolitanPaul Ponomaryov ofKrasnodar andKuban, who, on behalf ofPatriarch Kirill of Moscow, extended his condolences to Aleksandr Dugin and the other relatives.[93][94] After the funeral services, she was buried next to her grandmother in the village cemetery.[95]
Both Dugina, a journalist and political scientist, and her father were strong supporters of Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
Darya Dugina was driving in her far-right father Alexander Dugin's vehicle ... His daughter was a political scientist and journalist who held similar views to her father.
{{cite web}}:|archive-url= requires|archive-date= (help)Estonia rejected the Russian claim that Ms Dugina's alleged killer had fled across the border as a "provocation in a very long line of provocations by the Russian Federation".
Russia's top security agency on Monday identified a second Ukrainian that it alleged was involved in the killing of the daughter of a Russian nationalist ideologue.
Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, reaffirmed the denial late Monday, saying that "our special services have no relation to that". // Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu dismissed the Russian claim, saying in televised remarks that "we regard this as one instance of provocation in a very long line of provocations by the Russian Federation, and we have nothing more to say about it at the moment."
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)Francis condemned wars as "madness" and referred to the death of Darya Dugina
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