Politics & car bombs make for a volatile mix: The short life & infamous career of Darya Dugina By James Bruno

Let’s get one thing straight about 29-year old Darya Dugina’s fiery death on August 20. She brought it on herself. Yes, she was “young and pretty,” as the news media like to point out. But she was a player in Russia’s gangsterish political culture and therefore put herself in the direct line of fire — notwithstanding whoever detonated the powerful car bomb that smashed windows throughout the fashionable neighborhood in which she was driving. Dugina is an early casualty in what may be an oncoming internecine conflict where political and business differences are settled by Semtex and bullets.

Dugina was the daughter of Alexander Dugin, a hypernationalist firebrand who preaches for a Moscow-headed Eurasian empire fueled by a witch’s brew of Orthodox Christian nationalism, race, fascism and mysticism. He has been described as “Putin’s brain.” An arch-hawk on Ukraine, Dugin has exhorted that Ukrainians “must be killed, killed, killed.” And his daughter was a chip off her dad’s shoulder. Hours before her death, in an interview, she railed against “liberal totalitarianism” and claimed the massacre of some 450 residents of Bucha by Russian troops was staged by the Americans. Dugina ran a disinformation website that regurgitated her mad-hatter father’s conspiracy theories and war-mongering. Dugina, barely known even inside Russia, will soon be utterly forgotten, a minor mouthpiece in the service of lies and hate, never attaining the ignominy even of Lord Haw Haw or Axis Sally. A wasted life.

Alexsander Dugin (wikipedia)

Her murder, however, has sparked a whirlwind of speculation as to who did it, why, and whether a new period of politically driven violence will break out. Much of the speculation also centers on whether her father was the primary target. Having left a Russo-fascist festival, father and daughter switched cars at the last moment.

I queried several Russia experts to get their take.

Exiled Russian journalist Kseniya Kirillova believes the hit on Dugina was done by anti-Putin Russian partisans:

“Personally, I tend to the “partisan” version. Regardless of whether the Ukrainians were involved in the assassination attempt, this cannot be done without agents on the ground. And, if we recall the arson of military registration and enlistment offices and other similar actions, we can state that the war unleashed by Putin has come to the territory of Russia, where it is more and more reminiscent of a civil war.”

This view is supported by Kiev-based former Russian opposition politician Ilya Ponomarev, who claimed in a Ukrainian radio interview that an underground movement calling itself the “National Republican Army” tipped him off in advance that it was targeting Dugin and his daughter. He provided no evidence.

John Sipher, a 28-year veteran of the CIA who specialized in Russia, stresses that anything the Kremlin says about the incident is a lie, including conveniently pinning blame on a Ukrainian woman who happened to be traveling in Russia with her 12-year old daughter and charging her with the crime:

“I have no clue who did it or why, but frankly that fits most things that happen in Russia. There is criminality and corruption at every level. Personal and political vendettas and the Kremlin lies about it all. The notion that the FSB cracked the case in a day is laughable. Especially since every other political assassination is never solved, or covered up in the flimsiest way possible.

I suspect that the Kremlin is wary of pressure from the right. I don’t know if they are behind the hit but it certainly helps them for Dugin and his ilk to fear speaking out against the Kremlin’s failures in Ukraine. My guess is we will never actually know.”

Former senior U.S. diplomat and White House official Tom Maertens echoes the flimsy scapegoating ploy by Moscow:

“It’s hard to believe that the Russians pieced together all the so-called information on the killer, when it took weeks to months to solve other political killings, even one that took place in sight of the Kremlin.”

Putin critic and exiled Russian journalist Yulia Latynina predicts Putin will use the Dugina murder as a pretext for mass arrests and repression similar to Stalin’s Great Terror in 1930s. Others foresee Putin exploiting the alleged Ukraine connection as an excuse to use even more draconian tactics against Kiev.

Carnegie analyst Tatiana Stanovaya tweeted that the killing could make the Kremlin struggle to control increasing confrontation and violence between rival political camps in Russia: “Dugina’s assassination creates conditions in which a political demand for a more radicalized political leadership than Putin himself is formed. And the Kremlin will not be able to meet it.”

Russian journalist, now with Bloomburg, Leonid Bershidsky offers an intriguing take on the Dugina murder:

“The simultaneous attraction and tension between the Kremlin and the ultranationalists could explain why the Kremlin might benefit from an indirect strike against a figure as central to the community as Dugin. A warning would be sent to those “patriots” who might hope to benefit politically from Putin’s war — and at the same time, nationalist fervor could be whipped up by blaming the terrorist attack on Ukrainians. The FSB, Russia’s domestic secret police, has done just that, pinning the murder on a Ukrainian woman, allegedly affiliated with Ukraine’s nationalist Azov regiment, who, according to the FSB, fled to Estonia after Dugina’s death.”

He adds that Alexander Dugin was grooming his daughter to become Russia’s Marine LePen — another perceived threat to a paranoid autocrat like Putin.

So, while democracies modulate political criticism through open debate in the media and legislatures, leaving it to the voters to sort out whom they support in free elections, in Russia modulation is done through poisonings, imprisonment and assassinations. While Putin needs to fan patriotic fervor in support of his Ukraine folly, he cannot risk the far-right getting out of hand, calling into question his strength as a leader — territory in which the Dugin duo were treading. Solution: Semtex under the driver’s seat.

The key point here is to keep your eye on the ball. One can chase conspiracy theories down countless rabbit holes as to who did it and why. Keep in mind Churchill’s oft cited description of Russia: “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” So, don’t waste your time trying to sleuth this or any other such cases. We are likely to see more.

Here’s the rub, particularly if Dugina’s demise inaugurates a renewal of the violent ‘90s when Russian cities resembled Al Capone’s Chicago — as Russia’s economy and global reputation slide deeper into pariah status, and its society frays under the pressures, a rise in political violence inside Russia will erode Putin’s two-decade-long social contract with the Russian people: that he alone can maintain social and economic stability. With their deterioration come increased challenges to his authority, including in the form of political violence, which is now brought home by the war in Ukraine.

“By now it should be obvious to everyone that there are no safe places,” pro-Kremlin journalist Yury Kotenok tweeted, adding that Russians could no longer ignore the war. “Moscow is now a front-line city.”

 
James Bruno (@JamesLBruno) served as a diplomat with the U.S. State Department for 23 years and is currently a member of the Diplomatic Readiness Reserve. An author and journalist, Bruno has been featured on CNN, NBC’s Today Show, Fox News, Sirius XM Radio, The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Huffington Post, and other national and international media.