Was Ukraine Behind the Killing Of Dugin’s Daughter? – The New York Times reported on Wednesday how U.S. intelligence suggests that the killing of Daria Dugina, the daughter of Putin adviser Alexander Dugin, was organized by the Ukrainian government. According to the report, new details about the car bomb attack that occurred near Moscow, Russia, were revealed last week.
Revelations about the possible involvement of officials in Kyiv in the attack are significant as the Ukrainian government previously denied any involvement with the attack. The Times also reported that U.S. officials would have opposed any plans to launch such an attack and now fear that the news could “widen the conflict.”
The report also confirmed what 19FortyFive reported in August about the likelihood Daria Dugin’s father was the real target of the attack.
“Some American officials suspect Ms. Dugina’s father, Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian ultranationalist, was the actual target of the operation, and that the operatives who carried it out believed he would be in the vehicle with his daughter,” the New York Times reports.
According to the report, the American officials who spoke about the intelligence didn’t disclose what parts of the Ukrainian government were responsible for the attack, or even if President Volodymyr Zelenskyy approved of the attack or even know about it.
Dugin Warns Of World War Three
In the wake of the death of his daughter, Alexander Dugin called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to announce a full mobilization of his military in Ukraine and even suggested that the world is heading towards World War Three.
In a piece published at Geopolitika.ru, Dugin, known as Putin’s “spiritual guide,” Dugin explicitly states that the world is “on the brink of World War III” and accuses the West of “compulsively pushing” for the conflict. The Russian ideologue also claimed that Russia is already at war with the West.
“Russia is at war with the collective West, with NATO and its allies (though not with all of them: Turkey and Greece have their own position and some European countries, primarily but not only France and Italy, do not want to actively participate in a war with Russia). Yet, the threat of a third world war is getting closer and closer,” Dugin writes.
While the death of the Russian philosopher’s daughter no doubt impacted his thinking on the war in Ukraine, Dugin’s position has long been the same; that the West provoked this war, and that Russia has a duty to continue fighting until Ukraine is defeated and the West allows Russia to take whatever land it considers to be Russian.
If Dugin truly does have the influence over Putin that some say he does, his recent commentary is a signal that the Kremlin won’t back down over Ukraine even after recent major Ukrainian victories.
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
