Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin believes his daughter, Daria, was the target of the car-bomb attack that took her life last week, he has told journalists. The murder generated a lot of speculation about whether the killers intended to assassinate Dugin himself or his daughter.
“It was no mistake,” he said. “Every effort was made to kill her… she was the target,” he told a documentary titled “Why was Daria Dugina killed?” that is to be aired by Russia’s Channel One.
Dugina, 29, was driving her father’s Toyota SUV when it exploded, prompting Russian law enforcement and authorities to assume that the philosopher himself might have been the target of the attack.
According to Dugin, his daughter was targeted because she championed the “Russian idea… the idea of great power statehood; security for our people and our nation.” A conservative firebrand and rather fringe figure at home, Dugin himself has been dubbed ‘Putin’s brain’ and ‘Putin’s Rasputin’ by the western media that claimed he supposedly exerted influence on President Vladimir Putin’s worldview. In Russia Dugin is mostly seen as a marginalized figure with no real influence.
Earlier, Dugin had called his daughter’s murder a “terrorist act” and blamed “the Nazi Ukrainian regime” for the killing. He also said that he wanted Russia’s “victory” in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine rather than revenge.