U.S. believes Ukraine was behind killing of Dugina in Russia, NYT says By Reuters

By Man Faulconbridge

LONDON (Reuters) -U.S. intelligence businesses consider components of the Ukrainian authorities authorised a automotive bomb assault close to Moscow in August that killed Darya Dugina, the daughter of a distinguished Russian nationalist, the New York Occasions reported.

Reuters couldn’t instantly confirm the report, which cited unidentified U.S. officers. Ukraine repeated on Thursday its denial of any involvement within the assault.

The US took no half within the assault on Dugina and was not conscious of it forward of time, the Occasions reported. American officers later admonished Ukrainian officers over the assassination, the Occasions mentioned.

Dugina, 29, was killed when a automotive bomb tore by the Toyota Land Cruiser she was driving on Aug. 20. Her father, Alexander, who had been in a separate automotive, was pictured holding his head in shock as he surveyed the wreckage of the car.

After the killing, Ukraine denied any involvement, whereas Russia’s Federal Safety Service (FSB) accused Ukraine’s secret providers of being behind it.

In a message to Dugina’s household, President Vladimir Putin described her as a “brilliant, gifted particular person with an actual Russian coronary heart – type, loving, sympathetic and open”. He referred to as her homicide a “vile, merciless crime”.

If Ukraine had been behind the killing, it could illustrate Kyiv’s means to strike at targets in Moscow whereas additionally doubtlessly opening up the Ukrainian elite in Kyiv to revenge assaults from Russia.

“The involvement of the Ukrainian state on this terrorist act, on this homicide of a younger woman was argued and confirmed by our particular providers,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov mentioned on Thursday.

Peskov mentioned the Occasions report was optimistic within the sense that it appeared that U.S. intelligence agreed with Russia on who was behind the killing.

Nonetheless, he added: “I actually wish to hope that this isn’t some try by our American colleagues to absolve themselves of accountability for any preparations for future terrorist acts which the Ukrainian state, the Ukrainian regime, would possibly put together.”

KILLING

The U.S. officers cited by the Occasions didn’t disclose which parts of the Ukrainian authorities had been believed to have authorised the assault, who carried it out, or whether or not President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had signed off on the mission.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, advised Reuters on Thursday that “objectively talking” Dugina had been of no curiosity to Kyiv earlier than she was killed.

“Earlier than Dugina’s homicide, the folks of Ukraine and representatives of the Ukrainian authorities didn’t find out about her public actions and her affect on propaganda programmes,” he wrote on WhatsApp in response to a Reuters request for remark.

“In our opinion, the important thing beneficiary of Dugina’s homicide was sure Russian radical supporters of the battle (in Ukraine). Together with a piece of the (Russian) particular providers.”

The New York Occasions mentioned some U.S. officers suspected that Dugina’s father, a vocal supporter of what Russia calls its “particular navy operation” in Ukraine, had been the precise goal of the assassination.

After the killing, Dugin advised mourners that his daughter had died for Russia.

“If her tragic loss of life has touched anybody, she would have requested them to defend sacred (Russian) Orthodoxy, the folks and the Fatherland,” Dugin mentioned.

“She died for Russia, within the motherland and on the frontline, which isn’t in Ukraine however right here.”