Russia blames Ukraine for murder of Dugin’s daughter, says perpetrator allegedly fled to Estonia

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Russia to put Natalia Vovk on its wanted list

Russia’s Federal Security Service has accused Ukraine’s secret services of preparing and committing the murder of Alexander Dugin’s daughter through a Ukrainian citizen, Natalia Vovk Pavlova, who arrived in Russia last July 23 together with her twelve-year-old daughter, Sofia Shaban Mikhailovna.

The press service of the Russian secret services has specified in a statement, picked up by the Russian news agency Interfax, that, after perpetrating the crime, the Ukrainian woman traveled to Estonia from Moscow together with her daughter.

“In order to organize Dugina’s murder and to obtain information about her lifestyle, they rented an apartment in Moscow in the building where the deceased lived,” he said, adding that, to keep an eye on Dugina, they used a Mini Cooper car with Donetsk license plates.

Both were present, according to the Russian secret services, at the cultural festival where Dugina was participating as a guest, after which the journalist left the place in a Toyota Land Cruiser, owned by her father, the philosopher Alexander Dugin, leader of the Eurasian movement and a person close to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

Later, Russian security forces have reported that Natalia Vovk will be included in the list of wanted persons with the aim of extradition to Russia, Russian news agency TASS has picked up.

On the other hand, the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, has reiterated on Monday his accusations against the Ukrainian authorities, assuring that “they have moved to individual terror” in the framework of the murder of the journalist and political scientist.

“According to all indications, we can say that Kiev has moved to individual terror. What is the point of thinking about some kind of accident, some kind of coincidence? Unfortunately, it is not necessary,” she explained on public television, as reported by the TASS news agency.

Earlier, Pushilin wrote on his Telegram account, shortly after learning of Dugina’s death, that “terrorists of the Ukrainian regime, in an attempt to eliminate Alexander Dugin, have detonated his daughter.”

By contrast, former Russian opposition deputy Ilya Ponomarev earlier accused the Russian Army of perpetrating the murder of Dugin’s daughter. “Like many other direct partisan actions carried out on the territory of Russia in recent months, it was carried out by the Army,” he claimed.

In this cross-reproach between the parties, Russia initially blamed Ukraine for the attack, something that the Kiev government categorically denied before pointing to “Russian political groups that are trying to divide up the ideological space in the country” as possible perpetrators.

The Russian Investigative Committee, which announced the opening of a formal investigation and assumes that it was a premeditated operation, already has in its possession different recordings of the explosion and sent “an order to the operational services to identify the persons who committed the crime and other witnesses of the event.”

Dugina was killed at around 9:30 p.m. Saturday when a bomb exploded under the vehicle he was driving while he was driving on a highway near the Bolshie Vyazyomy municipality, less than 50 kilometers from the center of the capital, Moscow.