Daria Douguina, 30, died on Saturday August 20 in the explosion of her car, in a locality located about fifty kilometers from Moscow. This editorial journalist was the daughter of Alexander Dougin, an ultranationalist Russian ideologue, whose closeness to Russian President Vladimir Putin is debated. Nevertheless, father and daughter publicly supported Russia’s annexation of Ukraine.
>>Russia: what we know about the death of the daughter of an ultra-nationalist ideologue in a car bomb explosion
The death of Daria Douguina arouses great emotion in Russia: Vladimir Putin notably denounced a “despicable, cruel crime” who has “prematurely ended the life of Daria Duguina, a brilliant and talented person with a truly Russian heart“. Due to the war in Ukraine, many officials from the ultranationalist milieu point to the hand of kyiv behind this assassination. The leader of the “Separatist Republic” of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, thus accuses the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – who s ‘defends it – of having given the green light to the operation and qualifies it as“abject scoundrel”.
Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry talks about “state terrorism” and clearly threatens the Ukrainians with reprisals, if their responsibility is demonstrated. It is especially on Russian television that the nationalist camp is unleashed: “Ukrainian power must be fought with the same brutal methods used by our grandfathers“, says the host of the most popular talk show on public television.
The Russian police and justice initially remained cautious, simply saying that the explosion was caused by an explosive device. But the FSB – the Russian federal security service – broke its usual silence: it asserts, in a press release relayed by the Russian agencies, that Daria Douguina was indeed assassinated by the Ukrainian secret services.
The organization even published the photo of a Ukrainian national: Natalia Volk, born in 1979 and presented as a Ukrainian secret service agent. She would have entered Russia at the end of July with her daughter born in 2010, and would have rented an apartment in the same building as Daria Douguina to be able to monitor her, according to the secret services. The FSB even claims that she would have followed the journalist to a conservative cultural festival on Saturday.
Kremlin-linked media is posting what they say is Natalya Vovk’s ID card, which identifies her as a member of the nationalist Azov regiment.
Not the most obvious thing to take with you when you plot a car bombing in Russia pic.twitter.com/RNlBlGxfv6
— max seddon (@maxseddon) August 22, 2022
According to certain Russian media which publish a copy of her military papers, Natalia Vovk would have served in the Azov regiment. This battalion from the Ukrainian army is hated by the Russian authorities, which designates it as a neo-Nazi unit. For their part, the Ukrainian authorities deny being involved in this assassination: “Ukraine certainly had nothing to do with the explosion [de samedi]because we are not a criminal state”declared an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mikhaïlo Podoliak.
Finally, still according to the FSB, Natalia Vovk fled to Estonia with her daughter, after having put her assassination plan into action. Gold, “Russia does not cite Estonia by chance”, according to Sylvain Kahn, teacher-researcher at the Sciences Po History Center, specialist in European issues on Monday August 22 on franceinfo. The bordering Baltic country is “in the front line in the denunciation of this war” : “Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army, the Estonian, Finnish and Polish governments have been pushing the European Union to have the strongest policy possible”recalls the university.
“The Estonian Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas, spoke out very regularly throughout the summer to say, for example, that we should stop granting tourist visas to Russians who wish to return for a short period of time to Schengen area”Explain Sylvain Kahn. Another reason for tension between Estonia and Russia: Kaja Kallas asks that certain Soviet monuments, to the glory of the USSR, be moved to be put in museums and no longer be in the heart of Estonian city centers . “There are very clearly symbolic and political issues between these two countries”he concludes.