Darya Dugina’s father Alexander Dugin speaks during a memorial service
(Picture: REUTERS)A Ukrainian official has denied Russia’s accusation that its special services killed Darya Dugina in a car bomb attack, saying “we have more important tasks”.
National Security and Defence Council secretary Oleksiy Danilov said Ukraine had nothing to do with the death of a Russian ultra-nationalist’s daughter on Saturday outside Moscow.
“We have more important tasks for our boys and girls... The FSB did this and is now suggesting that one of our people did it,” he told Ukrainian TV.
He also claimed Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) is to stage terrorist attacks within Russian cities as support for the war is waning.
“The kremlin needs public mobilisation,” he tweeted.
“The FSB is expected to organize a series of terrorist attacks in russian cities with mass civilian casualties.
“Dugina is the first in the row. Unlike Russia, Ukraine is not at war with civilians.”
Presidential office adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said Russian “propaganda lives in a fictional world”, adding that the car bombing was part of a struggle within Russia’s special services.
Their comments come as Russian politicians bade farewell at a service on Tuesday to Darya Dugina, broadcast on Russian television.
Senior politicians, fellow nationalists and friends filed past Dugina’s dark wooden casket to say goodbye, lay flowers and convey their condolences to her parents, seated nearby.
Russia’s FSB security service has accused Ukrainian intelligence agencies of masterminding her murder, something Kyiv denies.
Her death has prompted calls among Moscow’s political elite for revenge.
“I consider it a barbarous crime for which there can be no forgiveness,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
“I hope the investigation will be quickly completed and according to the results of this investigation of course there can be no mercy for the organisers, those who commissioned this, and the perpetrators,” he told reporters.
Her father, Alexander Dugin, 60, who has for years advocated the creation of a new Russian empire that would absorb the territory of countries such as Ukraine, told mourners his daughter had died for Russia.
“If her tragic death has touched someone, she would have asked them to defend sacred (Russian) Orthodoxy, the people and the Fatherland,” said Dugin.
