Investigators work at the site of the car explosion that killed Daria Dugina on the outskirts of Moscow. She is the daughter of an important ally of Putin.
Russian Investigative Committee via AP
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Russian Investigative Committee via AP
Investigators work at the site of the car explosion that killed Daria Dugina on the outskirts of Moscow. She is the daughter of an important ally of Putin.
Russian Investigative Committee via AP
MOSCOW – An explosion on the outskirts of Moscow has killed the daughter of a key ally of Russian President Putin.
Daria Dugina, 29, was driving a Toyota Land Cruiser on Sunday when the vehicle exploded. Authorities in Russia have opened a criminal investigation.
She is the daughter of Alexander Dugin, who is often referred to as “Putin’s brain.” Dugin was a prominent Russian nationalist intellectual whose vision of a resurgent Russian empire influenced Putin. war in neighboring Ukraine.
For more than a decade, both father and daughter supported the Russian invasion. They have said many times that Russia can only thrive if Ukraine is destroyed.
Dugin has been placed on Western sanctions lists as the main proponent of the Kremlin’s forced annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. He also supported Russia’s decision to send troops into Ukraine earlier this year.
The United States imposed sanctions on his daughter in March after she worked as editor-in-chief for United World International, the organization Treasury Department classified as a misinformation site. The UK also introduced sanctions against Dugina in July.
Some of Dugin’s allies immediately assumed he was the target of the blast and blamed the Ukrainian government, which denied any role in the incident.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Dugina’s death was the result of Russia’s domestic instability and not any military action by his country.
He added that it was a consequence of her support of the war.
“Every person has to pay for their word,” Podolyak said in Ukrainian.
