Russian FSB blames Ukrainian intelligence after car blast kills Daria Dugina

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has accused the Ukrainian intelligence services of killing pro-war pundit Daria Dugina, the daughter of prominent Eurasianist philosopher Alexander Dugin, Interfax reported on Monday, August 22. 

Dugina was killed on Saturday, August 20, when the vehicle she was driving exploded in a Moscow suburb. Friends of the Dugin family told journalists that this car was typically used by Dugina’s father. According to media reports, the Russian authorities are investigating the possibility that Dugin was the intended target of the blast. 

The FSB’s Center for Public Relations told Interfax on Monday that “the crime was prepared and committed by the Ukrainian intelligence services.” The FSB also named Natalya Vovk, a Ukrainian citizen born in 1979, as the prime suspect in the ongoing murder investigation. 

As reported by RIA Novosti, Vovk allegedly arrived in Moscow with her 12-year-old daughter, Sofiya Shaban, on July 23, and rented an apartment in the building where Daria Dugina lived. The FSB claims that Vovk tailed Dugina in a Mini Cooper that changed license plates repeatedly (the car allegedly had plates from Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic). 

According to the FSB, on the day of the blast, Vovk and her daughter attended a literary festival where Dugina was present as an honored guest. Vovk and her daughter allegedly left Russia through the Pskov region after Dugina was killed, crossing the border into Estonia. 

Kyiv denied any involvement prior to the FSB’s allegations. “Ukraine, of course, has nothing to do with yesterday’s bombing because we are not a criminal state, unlike Russia,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the Ukrainian President’s Office, was quoted as saying on Sunday.