Russia: The daughter of Putin’s ‘geopolitical guru’, Alexander Dugin, is dead after an explosion in her car

LAST UPDATE: 09:48

The daughter of a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin has been killed near Moscow. As the BBC reports citing Russian state media, Daria Dugina died when her car caught fire while driving home.

According to an announcement by investigators who were at the scene and reported by Reuters, he was killed after a suspected explosive device detonated in the Toyota Land Cruiser he was riding in.

Investigators have opened a homicide case against her and will carry out forensic tests to try to determine exactly what happened. They said they are looking at “all possibilities” when it comes to finding who is responsible for the crime.

Russian media have pointed out that her father, the Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin known as Putin’s “geopolitical guru”, may have been the intended target of the attack.

According to Russian media outlet 112, father and daughter were due to return together from an event on Saturday night in the same car before Dugin made the last-minute decision to travel separately from his daughter.

Unverified footage posted on social media appears to show Dugin watching in shock as emergency services arrive at the scene of the burning vehicle.

Despite not holding an official position in the government, Alexander Dugin is a close ally of the Russian president and has even been described as “Putin’s Rasputin”.

His daughter, Daria Dugina, was herself a prominent journalist who strongly supported the invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier this year she was sanctioned by US and UK authorities, who accused the 30-year-old of contributing to online “disinformation” about the Russian invasion.

In May, she described the war as a “clash of civilizations” in an interview and expressed pride that both she and her father had been sanctioned by the West.