Arthur Greene
Ukraine is bracing itself for fresh waves of attack after Russia accused its special services of assassinating the daughter of one of Putin’s closest allies.
Journalist Darya Dugina, 29, was killed by a car bomb whilst travelling near the Russian capital Moscow on Saturday.
Her father, Alexander Dugin, is an ultra-nationalist political commentator and a close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Dugina’s friend, Andrey Krasnov, told news agency Tass that she was travelling in her father’s Toyota Land Cruiser, and that he may have been the intended target of the attack.
In the aftermath of the bombing, Russian fingers immidiately pointed to Ukraine.
A family friend of released a statement on behalf of Dugin, branding the attack “a terrorist act by the Ukrainian Nazi regime”.
On Monday, Putin called the attack a “vile, cruel crime” in a statement released by the Kremlin.
If the attack is related to the war, it will be the first time since February that it has touched the Russian capital.
Ukraine, however, has denied any involvement in the attack. In a televised broadcast, an advisor to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that “Ukraine has absolutely nothing to do with this, because we are not a criminal state like Russia, or a terrorist one at that.”
Officials have even suggested that Russia itself may have carried out the attack in a so-called “false flag” operation, in which they frame Ukraine so they can justify further acts of war.
Image source:Tass
