War is hell.
Elements within the Ukrainian government might’ve been responsible for the August 20 murder of Daria Dugina, the daughter of Alexander Dugin, a would-be political philosopher and pseudo-mystic whose ultranationalist views are often cited in Western media as an inspiration for Vladimir Putin’s descent into imperial delirium.
Dugin’s influence on the Kremlin is exaggerated, as evidenced by the lack of a direct battlefield response to the death of his daughter, who was killed instantly in a car bomb likely meant for her father. The two were departing an event in a Moscow suburb, where Dugin delivered a lecture.
Russia was quick to blame Ukraine, a charge Kyiv denied. “Ukraine certainly had nothing to do with yesterday’s explosion,” an advisor to Volodymyr Zelensky said, on August 21. “We are not a criminal state like the Russian Federation, much less a terrorist one.”
The international community, sympathetic to Ukraine’s tragic plight, didn’t ask many questions. My own skepticism regarding accusations of Ukrainian involvement wasn’t necessarily predicated on sympathy, but rather on Russia’s version of events, which felt contrived. The “investigation” was carried out with what seemed like an implausible level of efficiency. The FSB claimed to have identified the culprit (allegedly a woman who rented an apartment adjacent to Daria’s) within 24 hours.
But, on Wednesday, The New York Times said US intelligence believes “parts” of the Ukrainian government in fact “authorized” the attack. “The United States took no part, either by providing intelligence or other assistance,” Julian Barnes, Adam Goldman, Adam Entous and Michael Schwirtz wrote, citing US officials, who also said they weren’t apprised of the operation ahead of time “and would have opposed the killing had they been consulted.” On their account, the US chided Ukrainian officials over what the Times now suggests was a state-sponsored assassination.
Senior US officials initially joined the Zelensky government in denying any Ukrainian involvement in the murder, which the Times described as evidence that Ukraine’s security services “can get very close to prominent Russians.”
There was no immediate indication of whether Zelensky himself was apprised of the operation, let alone authorized it, but you’ll certainly be forgiven for asking. The officials who spoke to the Times refused to identify who in the US government spoke to the Ukrainians, or which Ukrainians were scolded.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Zelensky, said Daria had no “practical significance” and thus wouldn’t have been targeted. Podolyak was the same official who issued the original denial quoted above. No one in the State Department, the NSC, the Pentagon or the CIA would comment.
Daria was an unabashed propagandist, although she wouldn’t describe her nationalist advocacy as propaganda. The US media habitually refers to her father as a “high profile” figure, but I’d suggest that’s an exaggeration. Dugin and his ideas are best described as tangential to the Kremlin.
Writing of Daria days after her death, Masha Gessen noted that she “studied philosophy, spending a year in France” and performed in a band which played “Moscow’s hipster clubs.” Later, Gessen wrote, she began “working more closely with her father, representing both him and his views, and she eventually left the music scene to devote herself fully to political propaganda.”
Gessen quoted from Daria’s Telegram channel. On February 24, the day Putin announced his “special military operation,” she wrote that,
Last night I was walking down a deserted Moscow street and saw a Russian flag flying in the distance. Something whispered, ‘The Russians are coming.’ A woman’s intuition is mighty. There is a reason I noticed that quiet and that flag. In my mind I heard the slogan, ‘Empire, be!’ When I woke up, the empire had come into being.
It’s conceivable Putin could face more domestic pressure to ratchet up the conflict in the event his domestic audience is galvanized further by international reporting on alleged Ukrainian government involvement in the killing.
In the immediate aftermath of Daria’s death, state media and nationalist commentators urged swift retaliation. One pro-Kremlin personality, for example, took to social media to wonder, “Why there are any buildings still standing on Bankova Street in Kyiv.”
Daria wrote her master’s thesis on Plato, to whom one of history’s most famous phrases is sometimes falsely attributed: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” She was 29 years old.
Call me cynical or callous, but seems to me that organs of Putin propaganda should be fair game targets in resisting the outrageous war of conquest. If only they had managed to successfully target the master of evil, Vlad himself….
+1
She wasn’t very significant but either way the US is frankly not in a position to criticise anyone for murdering terrorists and affiliated by less than strictly legal means. Drone program, yes?
Amen!
After reading Tim Snyder’s latest about the possibility of a looming power struggle in Moscow — and to the point that Dugina’s assassination is evidence Ukraine’s security services “can get very close to prominent Russians” — confirmation of Ukrainian involvement at this moment seems designed to keep various players in Moscow guessing as to who, and who cannot, be trusted.
https://snyder.substack.com/p/how-does-the-russo-ukrainian-war
Supposedly they were after “Daddy Dugin”
Given what is going on in Ukraine it seems hardly surprising that it might have been done by an element in the Ukraine intelligence service or higher up, way above our pay grades on this one though. I would really like to know for sure if the Russians blew up the nordstream pipelines and if that was their way of sending a message to Nato countries supporting Ukraine. What will the response be if they take out other Nato countries infrastructure by overt or covert means? It seem that the odds of a confrontation directly with Russia in Ukraine by the US/Nato is going up by the day. A hot war with Russia directly is a very scary but real possiblity.
The last thing Russia wants is a hot war with NATO. Twenty years of kleptocracy and Putin’s eight-month misadventure in Ukraine has come close to breaking the Russian military; a fully engaged NATO would be more than a match for Putin’s conventional army, navy, and air force.
Ukraine denies killing Daria. Russia denies mass executions of Ukrainian civilians.
Hey, no one is guilty of doing anything wrong. Shit just sometimes happens.
I think Russia will avoid a hot war with NATO. They chose to fight the Ukranians who only have a tiny bit of NATO weaponry, and in so doing have lost the large majority of their ground combat power, more aircraft than they thought possible, and the flagship of the Black Sea fleet.
They know what will happen if they fight NATO itself. NATO airpower will work with the Ukranians to cripple the Russian forces in Ukraine, destroy any Russian aircraft that don’t flee back into Russia, sink the rest of their Black Sea ships, and Putin’s position will be even more tenuous.
He needs to think about reserving some military force in Russia for his own protection. Wagner’s mercenary forces and the Chechen forces have notably avoided the worst of the fighting that has decimated Russia’s regular forces. Putin and his generals do not have control of those forces, and are probably getting nervous.
What blows my mind is that this somehow leaked to the New York Times. If this is what the administration is thinking, then fine. Leaking that information suggests a serious failure to protect confidential national security information. (I have a hard time conceiving of a scenario where the admin decided their best option was to purposefully leak this, thought that’s always a possibility).
+1 too on that.
We are at war. There will be many mysteries that don’t get solved. If it was the Ukranians, it was incredibly stupid. I am from NYC originally. Stupid is the worst insult there is. As for assassination in general, it is prefereable to many alternatives. Imagine if Khomeini had been assassinated. Or Patrushev- this would make Putin a man without a logical successor. Remember, Russia is 58th in per capita income- and that is seriously declining. There will be no peace till Putin is decaffeinated.