Daria Dugina Death: Russia Blames Ukrainian Woman for Car Bomb Killing, But Ex-MP Makes Different Claim

On Monday, Russian officials accused Ukraine of the assassination of Daria Dugina, the ultranationalist daughter of a major Russian backer of the invasion, raising worries of a further escalation in the six-month conflict.

Ukraine has denied any involvement in the vehicle explosion that killed Daria Dugina, 29, on a highway in an upscale suburb outside of Moscow on Saturday.

Russia Says Ukrainian Woman Killed Daria Dugina

The FSB, Russia's domestic intelligence agency, published a statement on Monday claiming that the assault was planned and carried out by Ukrainian intelligence agencies, however the agency's assertions could not be independently corroborated. According to some Russian media accounts, the suspected target of the bomb was Dugina's father, Aleksandr Dugin, an ultranationalist writer who helped lay the intellectual groundwork for President Vladimir V. Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

However, the FSB's announcement identified Daria Dugina, a hardline pundit who had built a following through regular appearances on state television, as the intended target. The FSB said in its statement that a Ukrainian lady had been hired to carry out the explosives and had entered Russia on July 23.

According to the service, the woman was at the same nationalist celebration as Ms. Dugina and her father on Saturday before the blast. Mykhailo Podolyak, Ukraine's presidential adviser, tweeted that the FSB statement was propaganda from a fictional universe, New York Times reported.

As per Russian security agencies, suspect Natalia Vovk came to Moscow with her 12-year-old daughter a month ago and leased an apartment in the building where Dugina lived. Vovk and her daughter visited the literary and music festival Tradition on the day of the explosion, where Dugina was an honored guest. Vovk and her daughter escaped through the Pskov Region to Estonia after the remote-controlled explosion, as per USA Today.

Russia Car Bombing Was Allegedly Coordinated by Anti-Putin Organization

Daria Dugina was murdered Saturday when a bomb planted in her Toyota Land Cruiser exploded while she was driving on a highway on Moscow's outskirts. According to Russian media accounts, the 30-year-old woman took her father's automobile.

The FSB said that the female Ukrainian citizen spied on Dugina using a Mini Cooper and license plates from the so-called Donetsk People's Republic, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. The investigative documents have been turned over to the [Russian] Investigative Committee, the FSB added. The Russian Investigative Committee stated on Sunday that the bomb that killed Dugina in the town of Velyki Vyazomy was not an accident.

The new update comes after Ilya Ponomarev, a former member of Russia's Duma currently living in exile, said that the vehicle bombing was coordinated by the so-called National Republican Army (NRA), a hitherto unknown anti-Putin organization. Ponomarev said that the NRA permitted him to disseminate their manifesto through his Telegram channel Rospartisan.

The group portrays itself as made up of Russian activists, military members, and politicians who are now militants and partisans, and it says it opposes Russia's conflict with neighboring Ukraine, according to News Week via MSN.