Darya Dugina assassination: FSB says it was Ukrainian special services

The assassination of journalist Darya Dugina, which was committed in the Moscow region on August 20, has been solved. The crime was committed by Ukrainian special services, the Federal Security Service of Russia told TASS.

The perpetrator is a citizen of Ukraine, a woman, who fled to Estonia after the crime.

According to the FSB, a woman known as Natalya Vovk was following Dugina using a Mini Cooper, on which license plates had been changed several times. At the entrance to Russia, the car had the registration number of the Donetsk People's Republic E982ХН DPR. In Moscow, the car had a license plate of Kazakhstan — 172AJD02. Having killed Darya Dugina, the perpetrator left Russia with Ukrainian plate AH7771IP on the car.

The materials of the case were delivered to the Investigative Committee of Russia.

On August 20, at about 21:00, a Toyota Land Cruiser SUV exploded on Mozhayskoye Highway near the village of Bolshiye Vyazemy (Moscow's Odintsovo urban district). It was said that a bomb had been planted in the car in advance. The explosion killed Darya Dugina on the spot.

After the explosion, the vehicle driven by 30-year-old journalist and political scientist Daria Dugina caught fire. According to the Investigative Department, the crime had been plotted in advance.

Darya Dugina is the daughter of Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin. He heads the International Eurasian Movement. In 2014, US-based Foreign Policy publication put Alexander Dugin on the list of top 100 "global thinkers" of the modern-day world. From 2016 to 2017, he served as the editor-in-chief of the Tsargrad TV channel.

Darya Dugina graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University and was a political observer of the International Eurasian Movement.

On Saturday, August 20, Darya Dugina, along with her father, attended Tradition Festival, which was held at the Zakharovo estate in the Odintsovo district of Moscow. Alexander Dugin spoke at the event as a lecturer. They left their cars in the festival parking lot, but there were no surveillance cameras installed there.

Officers of the Investigative Department assume that it was on the parking lot of the festival, where unknown individuals planted an explosive device in the car in which Dugin had arrived.

Andrei Krasnov, the head of the Russian Horizons public movement said that Darya Dugina normally used a different car. However, after the festival, she got behind the wheel of her father's car, whereas Alexander Dugin himself left the festival in another vehicle. Krasnov believes that the perpetrators aimed to kill Alexander Dugin either alone or together with his daughter.

Alexander Dugin was one of the fist people who arrived at the scene of the tragedy. He soon felt unwell and needed medical attention.

Dugin's colleague, political scientist Sergei Markov, believes that Ukraine's military intelligence, security services, as well as anti-Turkish forces, could be behind the crime (Alexander Dugin has actively supported Erdogan's policies over the past decades).

In turn, the head of the DPR, Denis Pushilin, believes that it was Ukrainian terrorists who committed the crime, but they intended to kill Alexander Dugin rather than his daughter.