Car bomb kills daughter of Kremlin hardline ideologue

MOSCOW: The daughter of Alexader Dugin, a hardline Russian ideologue close to President Vladimir Putin, has been killed in a car bombing on Moscow’s outskirts, authorities said on Sunday.

According to family members quoted by Russian media, Dugin — a vocal supporter of Kremlin’s offensive in Ukraine — was the likely target of the blast as his daughter borrowed his car at the last minute.

Daria Dugina, born in 1992, was killed when a bomb placed in her Toyota Land Cruiser went off as she drove on a highway near the village of Bolshie Vyzyomy, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) outside Moscow, Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a statement.

Dugina died on the scene and a homicide investigation has been opened, said the committee, which probes major crime cases in Russia.

Dugin, sometimes called “Putin’s Rasputin” or “Putin’s brain,” is an outspoken Russian ultranationalist intellectual.

He has long advocated the unification of Russian-speaking territories in a vast new Russian empire and wholeheartedly supported Moscow’s operation in Ukraine.

He was put on a Western sanctions list after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, a move he also backed.

The head of one of Ukraine’s breakaway separatist regions blamed the blast on Kyiv authorities.

“The Ukrainian regime terrorists tried to liquidate Alexander Dugin, but blew up his daughter,” DNR chief Denis Pushilin wrote on Telegram.