Aug 21 EF-Special Sunday Edition
Darya Dugin killed in a car bomb & Russian agents arrested in Albania
Catching up…
EA Worldview’s Ukraine Up-date- hop over to Scott’s amazing Ukraine up-date page. I’ll fill in with some bits and bobs.
Today I’ll post information about two stories that are developing: Darya Platonova (Dugina), the daughter of ultranationalist, fascist Russian ‘ideologue’ Alekandr Dugin, was killed in a car bomb explosion at 9:30pm in Bolshiye Vyazemy, just outside of Moscow, last night. The other story is about the two Russian agents and a Ukrainian agent who tried to break into a weapons factory in central Albania. The information is preliminary.
Dugina killed in a car bomb explosion
As reported initially by Telegram channels Baza and 112, “a car was blown up in the Moscow region. It was preliminary established that the deceased was the daughter of public figure Alexander Dugin, Daria.”
[T]he incident occurred near the village of Bolshie Vyazemy near Moscow in the Odintsovo urban district. The car Land Cruiser Prado was blown up, the owner of the car, Daria Dugina, who was in the cabin, allegedly died on the spot.
Insider reports that “Russian violinist Petr Lundstrem says that Darya Dugina was returning from the Tradition festival. Her father was supposed to get into this car but left in another one.”
As per TASS, Andrey Krasnov, a friend of Dugina and the head of the Russian Horizon social movement, confirmed the reports.
The motive and who is behind the car bombing is still unknown. Krasnov speculates that the bomb could have been for her father. Aleksandr Dugin called for a totalitarian Russian Empire to control the Eurasian continent from Dublin to Vladivostok to challenge America and "Atlanticism".
This was the father’s vehicle. Darya was driving another car but she took his car today, while Alexander went in a different way. He returned, he was at the site of the tragedy. As far as I understand, Alexander or probably they together were the target.”
What is clear from the initial reporting is that the Russian authorities will try to peg this on Ukraine and/or spin it as a Ukrainian-NATO operation.
The first ‘official’ to give the news of the car bombing was Denis Pushilin, a Russian-installed servant to Moscow in Donetsk. He quickly blamed the Ukrainian government:
Vile villains! The terrorists of the Ukrainian regime, trying to eliminate Alexander Dugin, blew up his daughter... In a car. Blessed memory of Daria, she is a real Russian girl!
According to Olga Lautman, it was clear that Moscow was going to blame Ukraine for the car explosion.
Lautman added that “Malofeev's outlet,” is “calling it a "terrorist attack" while blaming Ukraine. Malofeev should look in his own backyard.”
Ukraine Now has been monitoring the Russian telegram channels and reports that:
propagandists are going crazy and demanding to hit Ukrainian decision-making centers. Their herd is bloodthirsty in the comments. The investigation has only just begun, but Ukrainians are already being blamed for the murder of the daughter of the racist ideologist Dugin.
Alekandr Dugin is a close ally to Putin and has even been described as "Putin's Rasputin" or “brain”. Darya Platonova (Dugina) was a political mover in her own right. Kamil Galeev adds that “she used the name and image of her father to establish herself in Moscow high society and tried to play in political games.”
She frequently appeared on Russian propaganda TV shows, and had her own YouTube show. She did mirror her father’s views, and advocated for a system of “liberal totalitarianism”, the self-cleansing of Russian society, a rejection of Western values, and total national mobilisation in support of the war against Ukraine. She was sanctioned by the US and UK authorities this year for having contributed to the dissemination of disinformation at the onset of Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine.
She has publicly described Ukrainians as “subhumans” and called for the Russian occupation of Ukraine and extermination of Ukrainian identity. On “her TG channel she urged “to produce fakes vs Ukraine”, adds Sergej Sumlenny. “She visited Azovstal recently, and wrote a book about the Z-war.”
Her reach and activities may not have been limited to spreading propaganda in Russia. Caroline Orr Bueno reveals that “[t]here’s a weird story about Darya Dugin — daughter of Alexander Dugin — and a Russian disinformation network based in Turkey but also linked to France and Russia’s Internet Research Agency.”
The authorities of the Main Directorate of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Moscow Region has opened a criminal case into the car bombing. For now law enforcement has said that they have identified the VIP location of Dugin’s car while it was parked at the Traditional festival. There were no cameras in the parking lot.
Darya Dugina was not slotted to give a speech at the event, but her father gave a lecture on “Traditions and History” at 6:00pm. Baza reports that the organizers remembered a man with a "strange flag" and he was immediately removed from the premises.
The investigation is on-going and I’ll keep you up-dated in future posts.
Russians arrested at Albanian weapons factory
Three possible agents were arrested trying to break into a military weapons factory, which has not been in operation for years, in central Albania.
The Albanian Defense Ministry reported on Saturday that “Three citizens with Russian and Ukrainian passports have tried to enter the factory. The officers who were guarding the plant reacted immediately, but during their efforts to stop the three foreign nationals, two of our soldiers were injured,”. The soldiers were in stable condition. They had arrived in Albania as tourists.
The Albanian prosecutors said this morning that one person had penetrated the perimeter of the armaments plant, and was trying to take pictures. When approached by the Albanian military and asked to stop, the person tried to run away, and a chemical agent to immobilise the Albanian officers. The person was then apprehended, as well as a woman and a man, who were waiting in the vicinity. Grozev reveals the identity of one of the possible agents:
“I am agnostic at this point as to whether this is an intel operation,” Grozev posits from his account. “However, it matches the goals: deniable (at least until you pepper-spray the guards), and done before. Btw, one of the 160 FSB kurators that ran the Ukraine project was a female blogger-photographer.”
I’ll keep an eye on this story as it is important to realise that this operation was carried out on NATO territory and may involve the Russian intelligence services.
In Ukraine
Ukrainian forces destroy Russian command post in Kherson Oblast. Ukraine's Armed Forces Operational Command Group "South" reported that in the past 24 hours, its artillery has also destroyed two ammunition depots in the region, and killed 75 Russian troops.
Ukrainian activity also in Sevastopol:
