Daughter of far-right influential Putin ally dies in car explosion, Russia’s main investigative body confirms
The daughter of Alexander Dugin, a far-right Russian nationalist who helped shape the ideas behind President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, was killed Saturday when the car she was driving exploded near Moscow, according to Russia’s main investigative authority.Russia’s Investigative Committee said it was looking into the incident and had opened a criminal murder case.
A Toyota Land Cruiser “went off at full speed on a public highway” and caught fire, it said, adding that the fire was likely caused by an “explosive device” installed in the vehicle. The driver, identified by the committee as “journalist and political scientist Daria Dugina,” died at the scene. Dugina, 29, was reportedly driving her father’s car from a festival they both attended when the blast occurred, engulfing the car in flames, a friend of Dugin’s told the state-run media outlet Tass. Andrey Krasnov said he believed her father was the target of an attack, “or maybe the two of them.”Dugin, a scathing critic of the United States, with close ties to the Kremlin, is sometimes referred to as “Putin’s Rasputin” or “Putin’s brain.
His daughter has also spoken publicly in support of the war in Ukraine and Russian imperial expansion. In March, she wasas part of a list of Russian elites and Russian intelligence-directed disinformation outlets, alongside her father who has been designated for sanctions since 2015. “The car caught fire immediately [following the explosion]. She lost control, because she was driving at speed, and flew to the opposite side of the road,” Krasnov told the Russian state media outlet, describing it as a “very grave event.”Krasnov said Dugin, who left the festival in a different vehicle, returned to the scene after the explosion. Videos circulating on