By Arvin Qaeian
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 sparked a catastrophic war that is still remembered as the “Great War”.
The murder of Darya Dugina, a twenty-nine-year-old Russian political commentator and daughter of Russia’s most renowned nationalist philosopher, Alexander Dugin, did not trigger the already raging hostilities in Ukraine. However, according to Robert Wright, an eminent political pundit, Darya’s murder could further escalate Ukraine’s conflict by provoking widespread outrage and a national desire for revenge.
Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said last Monday that Ukraine’s role in “terrorist actions” is not a coincidence, as investigations implicate Kyiv in Darya Dugina’s murder. “The West must understand that the Kyiv regime’s involvement in terrorist activities is not an accident or an isolated example. It is not even a norm of behavior. Everything is much more serious. This is a nationalist mentality combined with terrorism as a tool to implementing criminal ideology,” Ms. Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel.
The Kremlin issued a statement in which President Putin offered his condolences to Dugin’s family, saying: “A heinous and cruel crime that tragically cut short the life of Daria Dugina, a brilliant and talented woman with a truly Russian heart. As a journalist , scientist, philosopher and war correspondent, sincerely served the people and the motherland, illustrating with her deeds what it means to be a Russian patriot.”
There has been much speculation as to the identity and motivations of the killer, although nothing is known for certain.
According to Le Figaro, investigations by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) indicated that a mother allegedly serving in the Ukrainian secret service had sneaked into Moscow on Kyiv’s orders. The FSB revealed that Darya’s vehicle was planted with an explosive device by a veteran Ukrainian spy, identified as “Natalia Vovk, 43 years old.” After detonating the bomb with a remote control, the culprit and her daughter escaped overland to Estonia.
The FSB further added that “in order to organize Dugin’s murder and obtain information about his lifestyle, she [the assassin] and her daughter rented an apartment in Moscow in the block where the victim lived.”
The tragedy of this murder is made all the more poignant as Darya was not the target of the assassination operation. According to preliminary investigations by the FSB, Darya’s father was the main target of the fatal car bomb attack on Saturday night, August 20, where both father and daughter participated in a day-long cultural festival on the outskirts of Darya. from Moscow.
However, in a dramatic twist of fate, Mr. Dugin took a different car at the last minute. Soon, a harrowing video surfaced on social media platforms, showing Mr. Dugin clutching his head in anguish as Darya’s vehicle caught fire at around 9:00pm local time.
However, Mykhailo Podolyak, a key adviser to the Ukrainian president, has emphatically rejected his country’s involvement in the murder of Darya Dugina.
Alexander Dugin is an ultra-Orthodox ascetic and the most prominent ideologue of Eurasianism in recent decades. Western media have given him different and sometimes opprobrious epithets: “Putin’s mastermind”, “Russia’s new Rasputin” and “the guru of Slavic imperialism”.
Following a course similar to that of her father, Darya spent a year studying philosophy in France. His master’s thesis focused on Plato. Darya began to cooperate more extensively with his father when he was in his twenties and devoted all his time to political campaigns and as a fervent nationalist. She was infatuated with her father’s ideas, as described in her best-known work, “The Fourth Political Theory,” and gradually reflected her father’s ideology. She used the pseudonym “Darya Platonova” for her writings. Both father and daughter have been sanctioned by the United States for her ideas.
Alexander Dugin has been seen as the most prominent political strategist in Moscow who pushed Putin closer to Iran, hoping to revive Eastern spiritualism in opposition to Western liberalism.
Dugin argues that Eastern Orthodox Christianity has more affinity with Shia Islam than with Protestantism or Catholicism. Furthermore, Dugin was quoted as saying: “The annual Arbaeen procession, which marks the end of the 40-day mourning period for the death of Imam Hussein [PBUH] martyrdom in AD 680—evokes an apocalyptic event and serves as a prelude to a complete global transformation. With its liberal and capitalist ideologies, the modern world has come to an end and has achieved nothing for humanity but to create calamities.”
Dugin hopes that unity among Eurasian nations can ultimately contribute to forming a strong Eurasia, or as Sir Halford J. Mackinder described it, the Heartland of the world, in the face of Anglo-Saxon Atlanticism.
When General Qassem Soleimani was killed in a US terror attack, Dugin hailed him as a true hero, saying: “He was the hero of the fight not only for the interests of Iran and the Shiite world, but also the hero of the entire front of resistance”. against the hegemony of [Western] imperialism. The assassination of General Soleimani was a catastrophic disaster for Russia’s military strategists.”
But a tantalizing question remains to be answered. Who killed Darya Dugina?
Regardless of Moscow’s inflammatory anti-Kyiv rhetoric and official Russian accusations, Ukrainian officials are well aware of the fact that it is not in their interest to play the state-sponsored assassination game, as Russia’s intelligence capabilities go far. beyond those of Kyiv. as the Russians can retaliate with extreme severity.
On the other hand, it would be totally absurd to assume that Darya’s assassination was an inside job, since Moscow does not need the death of an obscure academic to arouse Russian patriotism or, worse, demonstrate its security vulnerability.
Therefore, many observers became suspicious of a theory lurking in the dark operating rooms of Mossad.
Darya’s dramatic death was likely an Israeli warning to the Kremlin to stay away from Iran’s regional allies Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip and Yemen’s Ansarullah Movement. [also known as Houthis].
To corroborate this theory, a recent visit by a Houthi delegation to Moscow can be mentioned. The head of the Yemeni delegation and its main negotiator, Mohammed Abdul Salam, indicated in a press release on Thursday, August 11, 2022, that fundamental changes have emerged in the Russian political outlook and that the Kremlin has realized that Yemen could be strategically influential without delving into the nature of those changes.
The Kremlin has embarked on a campaign to build alliances with new international actors, such as the Ansarullah Movement, to thwart mounting Western pressures it has faced since late February over its military intervention in Ukraine. In addition, Moscow seeks to engage in saber rattling against persistent US efforts to improve crude oil production by obstructing the passage of tankers through the Bab al-Mandab Strait. So the alleged motivation for Russia’s budding ties with the Sana’a-based government could be a latent desire to establish a naval base on the shores of the Red Sea.
Furthermore, in the past six months, at least two Hamas delegations have visited Moscow, suggesting that the Russians have partly expanded on their decades-old policy of neutrality regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict.
According to the Hebrew-language newspaper Maariv, in a phone call with Putin, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog expressed grave concern about Russian arms shipments to Palestinian armed resistance organizations.
The Zionist regime has a long and sordid history of brutal assassination campaigns against its enemies. In the case of Darya Dugina, she could be among the latest victims of the Mossad terror machine, as fingers point to a dying regime that is desperately trying to stop the ticking of the doomsday clock.
“Russia” and “our empire” were some of the first words we taught her as a child, Alexander Dugin said, his voice trembling at his daughter’s funeral.
In fact, Darya’s noble death evokes the famous Latin maxim “Mortem Occumbere Pro Patria”, which means to die for the country.
Arvin Qaeian is a political analyst based in Tehran.
(The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)
Leave a Reply