Following the death of the daughter of well-known, ultra-nationalist scholar Alexander Dugin in a car bombing on the outskirts of Moscow on Sunday, Russian officials announced that they had launched a murder investigation.
Based on the information previously gathered from the blast, the Russian Investigative Committee stated that it thought someone planned and ordered the automobile explosion that killed Darya Dugina. The investigative committee released a statement on Sunday that stated, "Taking into account the data already obtained, the investigation believes that the crime was pre-planned and was of an ordered nature."
Around 9.00 p.m., "an explosive device, presumably installed in the Toyota Land Cruiser, went off on a public road and the car caught fire" causing Dugina to pass away at the scene. According to the press office of the Russian Investigative Committee, as reported by the Russian state news agency TASS, the incident occurred on Saturday around the village of Bolshiye Vyazemy.
Dugina's father is a Russian author and ideologue who is widely regarded as the architect or "spiritual guide" of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He is said to wield significant power over Russian President Vladimir Putin and has been dubbed "Putin's Brain" by Foreign Affairs magazine.
The United States has imposed sanctions on both Dugin and his daughter. In July, the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on Dugina for spreading false information about Ukraine and the Russian invasion of that country on different online platforms, according to a statement.
Videos of the explosion showed a burning car at the side of the road and shattered auto pieces all over the vicinity. Dugin may be seen in an unconfirmed video taken at the scene. As the car belonged to Alexander, a friend of Dugina informed TASS that he thought Dugina's father, or possibly both of them, were the real targets of the explosion.
An official from the Russian foreign ministry said that the explosion was caused by Ukrainian state structures, an allegation that the Ukrainian government has refuted.
"If the Ukrainian trace is confirmed... then we should talk about the policy of state terrorism implemented by the Kyiv regime," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a Telegram post. "There have been plenty of facts accumulated over the years: from political calls for violence to the leadership and participation of Ukrainian state structures in crimes," she said.
On Sunday, Ukraine vehemently denied having any part in the automobile explosion. According to Mykhailo Podoliak, head of the office of the president of Ukraine, "Ukraine definitely has nothing to do with this because we are not a criminal state, which the Russian Federation is, and even more so, we are not a terrorist state."
