MOSCOW -- Hundreds of people lined up Tuesday to pay tribute to the daughter of a leading right-wing Russian political thinker following the 29-year-old woman's death in a car bombing that Moscow blamed on Ukrainian intelligence.
Speaking during a farewell ceremony held at a Moscow broadcast production center, Alexander Dugin said with his voice breaking that his daughter, a commentator with a nationalist Russian TV channel, “died for the people, died for Russia.”
“The huge price we have to pay can only be justified by the highest achievement, our victory,” Dugin said. “She lived for the sake of victory, and she died for the sake of victory. Our Russian victory, our truth, our Orthodox faith, our state.”
Darya Dugina was killed when a remotely controlled explosive device planted in her SUV blew up on Saturday night as she was driving on the outskirts of Moscow, ripping the vehicle apart and killing her on the spot, authorities said.
Her father was widely believed to be the intended target. Dugin is a philosopher, writer and political theorist who ardently supports Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to send troops into Ukraine. Russian media quoted witnesses as saying that the SUV belonged to Dugin and that he had decided at the last minute to travel in another vehicle.
During the memorial service at the Ostankino television center, Dugin shared what he said were his daughter's last words to him, spoken at a nationalist festival they both attended just before her death: “Father, I feel like a warrior, I feel like a hero. I want to be one, I don’t want any different fate. I want to be with my people, with my country.”
The car bombing, unusual for Moscow since the gang wars of the turbulent 1990s, triggered calls from Russian nationalists to respond by ramping up strikes on Ukraine. Ukraine has denied any involvement in the bombing.
Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, reaffirmed the denial late Monday, saying that “our special services have no relation to that.”
Leonid Slutsky, the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the lower house of Russia’s parliament, attended Tuesday’s farewell ceremony for Dugina. Slutsky, who took part in several rounds of talks with Ukrainian negotiators in March, indicated the killing would have repercussions for the conflict in Ukraine.