Russian FSB Names Ukrainian As Prime Suspect In Darya Dugina Killing

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) on Monday said the Ukrainian intelligence service was responsible for the bombing and murder of prominent Russian journalist Darya Dugina, according to a report.

The FSB said the Ukrainian special services had planned and carried out an operation to kill Dugina in a car explosion. Dugina is the daughter of prominent far-right ideologue Alexander Dugin.

"The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, as a result of a complex of urgent operational-search measures, has solved the murder of Russian journalist Daria Daria, born in 1992," the FSB Public Relations Center (CSP) said in a statement to Russian news agency Interfax on Monday.

The FSB also accused the Ukrainian intelligence service of hiring 43-year-old assassin Natalya Vovk to kill Dugin. According to the FSB's report, Vovk reportedly arrived in Russia on July 23, 2022, along with her 12-year-old daughter Sofia Mikhailovna, and rented an apartment in the same building where Dugina lived.

Vovk allegedly tailed Dugina in a Mini Cooper car, frequently changing the plates to avoid detection. Vovk and her daughter also attended a festival where Dugina was an honored guest on the day of the murder.

Both Vovk and her daughter allegedly left Russia and crossed the border into Estonia after Dugina's Toyota Land Cruiser exploded in the village of Bolshye Vyazemy on the evening of Aug. 20. Dugina died from the blast.

Ukraine has denied any involvement in Dugina's death. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, dismissed the FSB's allegations as "propaganda" in a "fictional world."

"Ru-propaganda lives in a fictional world: a Ukrainian woman and her 12-year-old child were 'assigned' responsible for blowing up the car of propagandist Dugina. Surprisingly, they did not find the 'Estonian visa' on the spot. Vipers in Russian special services started an intraspecies fight," Podolyak said in a tweet.

In an interview with The New Voice of Ukraine prior to the FSB's allegations, Podolyak also said Ukraine is not a "criminal state, unlike Russia."

Dugina's father is known to be the architect behind Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Dugina herself had allegedly called for the murder of the people living in occupied territories in Ukraine.