Flowers and candles to remember Daria Duguina in Moscow. Photo by Reuters
A daring car bomb in a Moscow suburb that killed the daughter of a notorious supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine added uncertainty to a war that has lasted for six months and worries the Russian elite.
Russian authorities said on Sunday that they had initiated an investigation into the murder of Daria Duguina, 29, an uncompromising political commentator daughter of philosopher Alexandr Dugin, who has long been a major supporter of an imperialist Russia and called to the Kremlin to intensify the attack on Ukraine.
Russian state television dubbed the car bomb attack on a highway Saturday night that shattered the windows of neighboring houses in an affluent Moscow suburb. as a “terrorist act” and said the target had been Duguin. Instead, she ended up killing her daughter because she got into another car at the last minute, according to the Russian press.
There was no evidence that the attack was related to the war in Ukraine, but Duguina’s relatives soon claimed that Ukraine was behind him. The Kremlin was silent. An advisor to the President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky, assured that sHis country was not involved in the attack.
“Ukraine has nothing to do with yesterday’s blast,” Mykhailo Podolyak, the adviser, told television on Sunday morning. “We are not a criminal state like the Russian Federation, much less a terrorist state”.
For everyone
However, the rare attempted murder of a pro-Kremlin elite member – reminiscent of the sensational murders in chaotic 1990s Moscow – it has the potential to further undermine Putin’s efforts to continue the war in Ukraine while maintaining a sense of normality in his country.
It comes after a series of Ukrainian attacks deep in the Russian-controlled Crimean peninsula and like many of the war’s most ardent supporters they ask Putin to launch a new attack on Ukraine in retaliation.
Duguina was not well known in Russia outside of ultra-nationalist and imperialist circles. But calls for an escalation escalated Sunday after his death, with some saying the attack showed the Kremlin could underestimate the strength of the enemy.
“The enemy is at the gates”, Akim Apachev, a Russian nationalist musician, wrote on social media. “Rest in peace, Daria. You will be avenged.”
Apachev posted a photo of her with Duguin and Duguina in which Duguina wore a camouflage military jacket tied around her waist. They met on Saturday at a nationalist festival on the outskirts of Moscow before Duguina set off alone in a Toyota Land Cruiser and, according to Russian investigators, she died on the spot after the explosion of a bomb placed under the driver’s side of the vehicle.
In the absence of reliable information on the perpetrators of the attack, speculation has flourished.
Some Russian critics of the Kremlin have argued, without evidence, that the attack could have been carried out by war supporters to bolster support for the idea of doubling down on the military campaign. Others wonder if the intention was to silence those who, like Duguin, they want Putin to seek escalation.
Russia has made only slow progress on the front lines in eastern Ukraine, as the Ukrainian capital Kiev defiantly paraded captured and destroyed Russian military equipment in its central square this weekend.
The ultranationalists
The attack on Duguina has targeted ultra-nationalist Russians, increasingly visible both on social media and on state television, who claim that Putin is too tender with Ukraine.
Although Putin announced on Monday that Russian forces are advancing “step by step”, some hardline popular commentators want him to move faster and more aggressively. attacking government buildings in central Kievfor example, or by carrying out extensive military recruitment.
“This happened in the capital of our motherland,” pro-Kremlin TV host Tigran Keosayan wrote on social media about Duguina’s murder. Referring to the position of the Ukrainian president’s office, he said: “I don’t understand why there are still buildings standing on Bankova Street in Kiev”.
The Russian military has threatened to attack Ukraine’s “decision-making centers” in retaliation for the attacks on what it sees as Russian soil, but has not followed up on such threats.
The incitements for revenge on Sunday highlighted them as the staunchest supporters of the invasion of Ukraine they could become difficult allies for the Kremlinespecially if the Russian leader chooses not to escalate the war.
Anton Troyanovsky
Source: Clarin
