Darya Aleksandrovna Dugina (Russian: Дарья Александровна Дугина; 15 December 1992 – 20 August 2022), also known under the pen name Daria Platonova (Russian: Дарья Платонова), was a Russian journalist, political scientist, and activist. She was the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, a far-right political philosopher, whose political views and support for Vladimir Putin she shared.
She was killed in August 2022 in a car bombing on the outskirts of Moscow. Later, Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), indirectly confirmed Ukraine's involvement in the assassination.
Darya Dugina was born on 15 December 1992 in Moscow, Russia. She was the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin and his second wife, philosopher Natalya Melentyeva. In 2012/2013, while studying at Moscow State University, she was an intern at Bordeaux Montaigne University, specializing in Ancient Greek philosophy. Her MSU degree "focused on the political philosophy of late Neo-Platonism". She was in a PhD program, but she left the university before completing her degree.
After university, she worked as a journalist, writing for the state-controlled media outlet RT and the pro-Kremlin conservative channel Tsargrad, using the pen name Daria Platonova. She was affiliated with the International Eurasian Movement, and worked for them as a political commentator.
According to the United States Department of the Treasury, which added her to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List on 3 March 2022, she was the chief editor of a disinformation website called United World International which states it was owned by Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, who also controlled the state-backed Wagner Group. At the same time, she served as a press secretary of her father.
Dugina was an outspoken supporter of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In particular, she claimed that the war crimes against Ukrainian civilians by the Russian army during the invasion were staged. She mentioned that the war in Ukraine "serves to break the bridges of interaction between Russia and Europe, a struggle between two worldviews." In June 2022, she visited occupied Donetsk and Mariupol.
Dugina visited the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, where she collaborated with British journalist Graham Phillips, who also worked for Russian state media. On 4 July 2022, she was sanctioned by the British government, which accused her of being a "frequent and high-profile contributor of disinformation in relation to Ukraine and the Russian invasion of Ukraine on various online platforms." She responded by saying that she is an ordinary journalist and should not have been sanctioned.
Dugina was killed on 20 August 2022, when her car exploded on Mozhayskoye Highway in the settlement of Bolshiye Vyazyomy outside Moscow around 21:45 local time. She was driving to Moscow after attending the annual festival "Tradition," which describes itself as a family festival for art lovers.
The "Tradition" festival is held at the Zakharovo estate, approximately one kilometre (1⁄2 mi) north of Bolshiye Vyazyomy. Investigators said an explosive device was attached to the underside of the car. It is unclear whether she was targeted deliberately, or whether her father, who had been expected to travel with her but switched to another car at the last minute, was the intended target, or whether the intention might have been to kill both.
On 22 August, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed that Ukrainian special services were behind the killing, alleging that their primary suspect was Natalia Vovk, a middle-aged female Ukrainian national who escaped to Estonia after the explosion. The suspect's relatives said that she was a former clerk in the National Guard of Ukraine. According to the FSB, after arriving with her daughter in Russia the previous month the Ukrainian rented an apartment in the building where Dugina lived, and she was at the festival which Dugina attended before being killed. The FSB also released surveillance footage from cameras at the entrance of the apartment building and at the border crossing points, purportedly showing the suspect, and said that she drove a Mini Cooper. The FSB allege she used a license plate from the Donetsk People's Republic, then switched to a plate from Kazakhstan and then used a plate from Ukraine to cross the border to Estonia.
Interfax later reported that the FSB named an accomplice, a middle-aged male Ukrainian national, as providing logistical assistance to the primary assassin. Specifically, the FSB alleged that the accomplice provided the primary suspect with their false license plates and a Kazakhstani passport, and assisted in bomb assembly while in Russia. The FSB further alleged that the accomplice had also escaped to Estonia. The name of the alleged accomplice was released by FSB on 29 August 2022.
The later Interfax report elaborated the FSB assertion, that the primary assassin tailed Dugina in the parking lot for guests at the "Tradition," followed Dugina's Land Cruiser in her own Mini Cooper, and detonated the bomb via remote control. It has been impossible to independently verify any of the claims made by the FSB, as Russia has partially criminalized disagreement with the official narrative of the killing and the war in Ukraine in general, and has made independent verification more difficult.
On 23 October 2023, The Washington Post reported that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had carried out dozens of assassinations in Russia since the invasion began, including the bomb attack that killed Darya Dugina, which Ukraine had previously denied. Ukrainian Natalia Vovk, whose name appeared in the reports of Russian law enforcement officers, imported components of an explosive device into Russia in a cat carrier. The CIA did not comment on the article. The head of the SBU, Vasyl Malyuk, said that all the objectives of his department's operations were completely legitimate.
Claim of responsibility from National Republican Army
Ilya Ponomarev, a former member of Russia's State Duma living in exile in Ukraine, said that a Russian partisan group was responsible for the attack, and that the hitherto unknown group calls itself the National Republican Army (NRA).
Ponomarev's statements about NRA involvement
Ponomarev said the NRA is an underground group working inside Russia, dedicated to removing Putin from power. He later said it is a "network" of clandestine cells. Ponomarev told the Kyiv Post the group previously carried out anonymous arson attacks on military induction centers, then shifted to targeting Dugin and Dugina as "something high-profile for which they could become well known." He said that a contact in the group told him a week before the assassination to expect "something big," followed by instructions on the day of the event to "watch the news." Following news coverage of the assassination, Ponomarev said that he was provided evidence of the group's responsibility.
Ponomarev added that his sources believed two persons (i.e., both Dugin and Dugina) were in the targeted car. From Ponomarev's statement, it is unclear whether she was targeted deliberately, or whether her father was the intended target, or whether the intention might have been to kill both. Ponomarev gave a similar account to Radio NV (Ukrainian: Радіо НВ), adding that his contacts "sent certain photos to prove their involvement."