Ukrainian officials have dismissed Russian claims that their security services blew up the daughter of prominent pro-Kremlin ideologue Alexander Dugin, as he said only Moscow’s victory in its bitter war against Kyiv would be a fitting response to her death.
Fighting and artillery and rocket fire continued in eastern and southern Ukraine on Monday, and Kyiv officials accused Russia of continuing to launch strikes close to Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant, as western leaders said military action should cease near the facility and international experts should inspect the safety of its six reactors.
Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Monday that the murder of Darya Dugina (30) was a “vile, cruel crime” against “a bright, talented person with a real Russian heart – kind, loving, sympathetic and open... a patriot of Russia”.
Dugina was killed on Saturday when a bomb ripped through her car near Moscow. She was a frequent commentator on state television in Russia, often echoing her father’s virulently ultra-nationalist, revanchist, anti-western views and his support for Mr Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which has killed thousands of civilians and displaced millions.
Mr Dugin said the “Nazi Ukrainian regime” killed his daughter, whom he described as “a beautiful Orthodox girl, a patriot, a military correspondent, an expert on [state television] channels, and a philosopher”.
“Our hearts yearn for more than just revenge or retribution. It’s too small, not in the Russian style. We need only our victory. On its altar, my daughter laid down her young life. So triumph, please!”
Russia’s FSB security service said Dugina had been killed by a Ukrainian woman working for Kyiv’s security agencies, who had moved to Moscow in July with her daughter and lived in the same apartment block as Dugina to monitor her movements. She allegedly placed the bomb under Dugina’s car on Saturday before driving to safety in Estonia with her daughter.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said “Russian propaganda lives in a fictional world” and suggested Dugina had been the victim of infighting between “vipers in Russia’s special services”.
Earlier, Ilya Ponomaryov, a former Russian deputy and Putin critic now living in exile in Ukraine, said a new Russian resistance group called the National Republican Army had claimed responsibility for the murder of Dugina as part of a campaign to target pro-Kremlin figures and ultimately topple Putin’s regime of 22 years.
Kyiv has banned big public gatherings this week amid fears that Moscow will launch a major strike on the city to mar Ukraine’s independence day on Wednesday – which will also be six months since the start of Russia’s all-out invasion of its pro-western neighbour.
US president Joe Biden, French counterpart Emmanuel Macron of France, German chancellor Olaf Scholz and British prime minister Boris Johnson discussed continued shelling near the Zaporizhzhia atomic power plant in southeastern Ukraine.
They discussed “the need to avoid military operations near the plant and the importance of... a visit as soon as feasible to ascertain the state of safety systems”, by experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the White House said.
Ukraine and Russia blame each other for shelling that has damaged radiation sensors and power lines at the facility.
