Photo: Anadolu
Russian officials have blamed Ukraine's secret services for the assassination of Darya Dugina, the daughter of Alexander Dugin, an ultranationalist who is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"The murder of journalist Darya Dugina has been solved, it was prepared by the Ukrainian special services, by a citizen of Ukraine," Russian state news agency TASS said, according to CNN.
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said that the suspect arrived in Russia on July 23 with her 12-year-old daughter and rented an apartment in the same building as Dugina. They said the woman detonated remote explosives planted in Dugina's Toyota Land Cruiser Prado before fleeing to Estonia.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, vehemently denied the claims that Ukraine was involved in Dugina's death.
"Ru-propaganda lives in a fictional world: woman and her 12-year-old child were "assigned" responsible for blowing up the car of propagandist Dugina. Surprisingly, they did not find the "Estonian visa" on the spot. Vipers in 🇷🇺 special services started an intraspecies fight," Podolyak wrote on Twitter.
Ukrainian officials also pushed back against claims that the suspect was a member of the Azov unit of the National Guard.
"It is a fake that Ukraine is involved in this (killing of Darya Dugina). It is a fake that the National Guard of Ukraine is involved in these events. The National Guard is fulfilling its legal tasks at the territory of Ukraine," Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for the Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, said in a statement.