es Vienna, August 21, 2022 (updated)
Ukrainian President Zelensky today emphatically denied – “don’t sow fear” – any Ukrainian involvement in the car-bomb death of 29-year-old Darya Darina, daughter of Putin confidant Alexander Dugin.
An ultra-nationalist ideologue and Hitler sympathizer as well as a dabbler in black magic, Dugin, 60, is often called “Putin’s brain”, though insiders think his influence has been exaggerated. Certainly, he has long urged a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Dugin is thought by the Russian authorities to have been the intended target. He and his daughter had been at the Tradition festival near Moscow, where Dugan gave a lecture at the Zakharovo estate, where the poet Alexander Pushkin passed some of his childhood. The Dugans were due to leave together on Saturday evening in Dugin’s car, before he reportedly decided at the last minute to travel separately.
- Observer, 21/08/22 Exiled former MP Ilya Ponomarev says killing work of partisans
- Guardian, London 21/08/22 Ukraine updates including Albanian spying row
- 60 Minutes, Australia 12/05/22 Interview with Dugan, long-time proponent of annexation of Ukraine
- Moscow Times, 27/09/18 Moscow elite and occultist superstitions
Literary note: I understand that Putin, known to be superstitious, is especially allergic to the great, mystical novel The Master & Margarita by Kyiv-born Mikhail Bulgakov. “It would be a shame if Putin and his invading army were inundated with images of Bulgakov’s enormous demon cat Бегемот (Behemoth). Text: ‘I’m coming for you, Vladimir Vladimirovich’ ” twittered a Bulgakov fan who is apparently less keen on the Russian president.