Killing of Darya Dugina

Killing of Darya Dugina
Part of terrorism in Russia
Location	Bolshiye Vyazyomy, Odintsovsky District, Moscow Oblast, Russia
Coordinates	55°37′48″N 36°59′06″E
Date	20 August 2022 (2022-08-20) c. 21:45 (MSK)
Target	Aleksandr Dugin, or Darya Dugina, or both
Attack type	Car bomb
Perpetrators	National Republican Army (own claim) SBU, (Russian FSB claim) FSB (claim by Oleksiy Danilov)

Darya Dugina was killed on 20 August 2022, when her car exploded on Mozhayskoye Shosse in the settlement of Bolshiye Vyazyomy outside Moscow around 9:45 p.m. local time.

Darya Dugina in April 2022

She was driving to Moscow after attending the annual festival "Tradition", which describes itself as a family festival for art lovers. The "Tradition" festival is held at the Zakharovo estate, approximately 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) north of Bolshiye Vyazyomy. Investigators said an explosive device was planted in the car.

It is unclear whether she was targeted deliberately, or whether her father was the intended target, or whether the intention might have been to kill both.

Russian investigation and response

On 22 August, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed that Ukrainian special services were behind the killing, alleging that they hired a contractor, a Ukrainian national, who escaped to Estonia after the explosion.

According to the FSB, after arriving with her daughter in Russia the previous month the Ukrainian rented an apartment in the same building where Dugina lived, and both were present at the same festival Dugina attended before she was killed.

The FSB also released surveillance footage purportedly showing the suspect from cameras at the entrance of the apartment building and at the border crossing points, saying that they drove a Mini Cooper, and entered Russia using a license plate from the Donetsk People's Republic, switching to a plate from Kazakhstan before finally entering Estonia with a plate from Ukraine.

The Ukrainian government denied any involvement, with Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak stating that "we are not a criminal state like the Russian Federation, much less a terrorist one".

The Minister of Foreign Affairs for Estonia, Urmas Reinsalu, said that the claim that Dugina's assassin fled to safe harbor in Estonia was "[one] provocation in a very long line of provocations by the Russian Federation." Reinsalu and the Ministry urged Estonians to avoid travel to Russia, and advised those on short term travel in Russia to hasten their exit.

Reactions

Dugina's father, Aleksandr Dugin, called the killing a "terrorist act executed by the Nazi Ukrainian regime" and wrote that "we need only our victory".

Russian president Vladimir Putin sent a message of condolences to the family of Dugina, describing her as a "bright, talented person with a real Russian heart". Putin posthumously awarded Dugina the Order of Courage.

On 23 August, United Nations spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric called for an investigation into Dugina's killing.

The head of the Donetsk People's Republic, Denis Pushilin, claimed that Ukrainian authorities were behind the explosion.

Pope Francis condemned the killing of Darya Dugina and mentioned it as an example of the "madness of war". The statement was strongly criticized by the Ukrainian ambassador to the Holy See Andrii Yurash.

In the immediate aftermath of the assassination, the United States-government backed Ukrainian-language news service Svoboda.org gathered various perspectives from Russian-language social media. They included a round-up of reactions from pro-regime figures including former National Bolshevik Party member Zakhar Prilepin blaming Ukrainians (and calling for grenade attacks in reprisal); Aleksey Chadayev blaming Poles; Yegor Kholmogorov, Darya Mitina, Yevgeny Primakov Jr. attributing the death to Westerners in general; and Alexander Ryklin blaming Alexei Navalny.

The same compilation included responses from opponents and critics of Putin. Dmitry Gudkov wrote of the event as a "boomerang" (Russian: бумеранг) for Dugin's warlike rhetoric. Maria Baronova observed that since the outbreak of the "special military operation" assassinations were shifting from cloaked poisonings back to openly violent means, and recalled wry advice from the 1990s to avoid expensive cars. Grigorii Golosov theorized that the attack was meant for Darya Dugina (and not her father) to provide an appealing martyr for anti-Ukraine hawks, though he stressed that he would refrain from guessing whom these hawks are. Alexander Nevzorov wrote that neither Dugin nor Dugina were important, but noted the assassination had created fear among Putin's circles.

National Republican Army claim of responsibility

Ponomarev appearing in a 2021 video published by Free Russia Forum

Ilya Ponomarev, a former member of Russia's State Duma now living in exile in Ukraine, claimed that a Russian partisan group was responsible for the attack, and that the hitherto unknown group calls itself National Republican Army (NRA) (Russian: Национальная республиканская армия (НРА)). Ponomarev claims the NRA is an underground group working inside Russia, dedicated to removing Putin from power. He has subsequently claimed it is a "network" of clandestine cells.

In Ponomarev's narrative to the Kyiv Post, the group has previously carried out anonymous arson attacks on military induction centers, then shifted to targeting Dugin and Dugina as "something high-profile for which they could become well-known." He elaborated that a contact in the group told him a week before the assassination to expect "something big," followed by instructions on the day of the event to "watch the news." Following news coverage of the assassination, Ponomarev claims that he was provided evidence of the group's responsibility. Ponomarev added that his sources believed two persons (i.e., both Dugin and Dugina) were in the targeted car. Ponomarev gave a similar account to Radio NV (Ukrainian: Радіо НВ), adding that his contacts "sent certain photos to prove their involvement."

Along with the claim of responsibility for the assassination, Ponomarev aired the organization's manifesto on his media outlet "February Morning" (Russian: Утра Февраля) and hailed it as "a new page in Russian resistance to Putinism. New—but not the last."

Later confronted with the news of the FSB's accusation, Ilya Ponomarev told the Meduza news outlet that his purported sources in the National Republican Army deny the claimed Ukrainian being the perpetrator while leaving ambiguous whether she may have had a role. In both Meduza and a message to his Telegram channel "Rospartisan" (Russian: Роспартизан), Ponomarev appeared to take credit for her exfiltration from Russia at the request of unnamed "friends".

Following his announcement of support for the assassination and the NRA, Ponomarev claims to have been disinvited from a planned meeting of Russian dissidents.

Skeptical and critical reactions to Russian NRA claims

As of 21 August 2022, Associated Press and The Guardian articles concerning the death of Dugina and its aftermath state that the claim of a National Republican Army responsibility cannot be confirmed. A 22 August 2022 report from Reuters says that "[Ponomarev's] assertion and the group's existence could not be independently verified."

In an interview with Ponomarev for Meduza, both the interviewer Svetlana Reiter and the editor note skepticism about his claims about the Russian NRA, his accommodations of Putin in his Duma career, and the source of his wealth. Separately, Meduza managing editor Kevin Rothrock questioned Ponomarev's integrity, the existence of the NRA, and implied that both Dugin and Dugina were "civilians" who should not have been targeted.

Citing the livestream of Yulia Latynina, Cathy Young mused on the possiblity that Ponomarev is a "a grifter trying to sell a good story," but noted that the NRA manifesto's appeal to patriotism is not suggestive of black propaganda.

Sergey S. Radchenko, a professor at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told Deutsche Welle he found the claim of responsibility and manifesto to both be "dodgy".

Deutsche Welle's reporter in Kyiv Roman Goncharenko said, "there are more questions than answers" about the group, and noted that the group's purported manifesto employs a call to action "fight like us, fight with us, fight better than us!" (Russian: боритесь как мы, боритесь вместе с нами, боритесь лучше нас!) inspired by the Deutscher Fernsehfunk children's television show Do with us, do as we do, do better than us!  that aired in both East Germany and the Soviet Union until 1991.

In The Conversation, Matthew Sussex of Australian National University's National Security College wrote that "very few observers believe the hitherto-unknown National Republican Army, which claimed responsibility for the killing, was to blame. But if it were, then it points to the real possibility of organised domestic terrorism in Russia."