That’s how Darya Dugina, who was killed on Saturday evening outside
Moscow by a car bomb, described herself last May in an interview with an
obscure far-right Breton website, Breizh-info.com. (“Globalist” in far-right
Russian circles means the United States, NATO or ‘the West’; “Eurasian” is just
a more expansive way of saying ‘Russian’.)
The car-bomb that
killed the 29-year-old philosopher and journalist was probably intended for her
father Alexander Dugin, also a philosopher and sometimes called “Putin’s Brain’
by the foreign media because of his alleged influence on the Russian president.
They had driven together to an event supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine
where Dugin spoke. He took another car home and so escaped the bomb, but they
were very close.
“I have the honour of
being in the same boat as my father (on the same existential ship), being the
daughter of a great scholar and author of the 24-volume work Noomachia ('wars of the mind' ). The fact that we are under sanctions
by the US, Canada, Australia and the UK is a symbol that we Dugins are on the
path of truth in the fight against globalism.”
The ‘path of truth’ they were both
on was Neo-Platonism, a style of early Christian mysticism so abstruse and
absurd that I will not try to explain it here beyond saying it was big on ideal
forms and not so keen on matter. It remained fashionable in parts of the
Orthodox church, and has recently found favour with Russian ultra-nationalists.
But Darya Neoplatonova (Dugina’s
pseudonym as a writer) was not murdered for saying “The main line of thought in
late Neo-Platonist political philosophy is the development of the idea of a
homology of the soul and the state and the existence of a similar threefold
order in both.” Her father was not targeted for his dangerous ideas either.
I never met Darya Dugina, but I did
once interview her father about a dozen years ago, when he was still believed
to be close to Vladimir Putin. (He certainly isn’t now, and has even lost his
job at Moscow State University.) My Russian was pretty rusty by then, so I took
an interpreter along to the interview in his modest flat.
Alexander Dugin proceeded to expand
in great detail on the wrongs inflicted on the Russian soul by wicked
foreigners and the need for an “existential politics” to counter them, but
there were few concrete policy ideas amongst the shower of abstract nouns.
I also noticed that the translator
was leaving out quite a lot of what he was saying. I thought he was just going
too fast for her, but when I asked her afterwards she said she had been too
embarrassed by some of what he said. He wasn’t ranting, exactly, but the
nationalist paranoia was unrelenting and overwhelming.
The point is that neither father nor daughter was an important
target in terms of their influence on Russian policy, which pretty much rules
out any Russian motive for killing either of them. Darya Dugina was an
enthusiastic supporter of the attack on Ukraine
– she even visited the conquered city of Mariupol – but she was just
another cheerleader.
So who planted the bomb? Almost
certainly somebody Ukrainian who was part of that country’s extensive
intelligence network in Russia, or some Russian underworld figure paid by the
Ukrainians. (There are about two million Ukrainians living in Russia.)
Was either Alexander or Darya a
legitimate target? Neither of them was
an entirely innocent bystander in the conflict, but they were certainly unarmed
civilians so most people would say that the bombing was a crime.
Was it terrorism? Yes, in the very
specific sense that its motive must have been to show that Ukraine could strike
anywhere in Russia with impunity, and thereby terrorise Russians into
abandoning their invasion of Ukraine. (It probably won’t have that effect, but
that’s the only plausible motive.)
Will it harm the Ukrainian cause in
terms of public opinion elsewhere? A little bit, maybe, because blowing young
women up is never a good look, but probably only for a short time. It’s a war,
and on the same day Russian shelling wounded twelve civilians, including four
children, in the Ukrainian town of Vosnesensk.
What’s the difference, apart from
the fact that the Russian gunners didn’t know the names of their victims, and
the Ukrainian who planted the bomb that killed Darya Dugina didn’t wear a
uniform?
Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
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A Russian with pro Putin ideals and whose father was close to him. How many innocent Ukrainian have been killed by indiscriminate bombings under an act of war - not special operations as the Kremlin says. Who really cares. The invasion is illegal and immoral and has no genuine justification. Some might say it's a shame that they didn't get her father and Putin at the same time.
By DAvid Clark from UK on 22 Aug 2022, 18:37
How exactly is this related to Portugal and why is it on Portugal News? Also, who exactly is this author, who makes such claims using words like certainly and almost certainly without presenting any facts?
By Yuliia from Porto on 22 Aug 2022, 22:53
If you like Putin and Russia so much, why don't you move to Russia? What does this have to do with Portugal? Everyone sees right through this, except for some obscure canadian blogger who really likes to be deceived by the Russians as well as the portugal news who is being deceived. Go home UK people to your miserable island and leave your opinions at the pub.
By Clark from Lisbon on 23 Aug 2022, 12:09
Well done for publishing Gwynne’s excellent piece. A pat om the back for the Portugal News.
By Stuart from Algarve on 27 Aug 2022, 23:06
Ukrainians didn't even know who is Dugin and Dugina :D No one knew, generally. Maybe a few people in russa only.
By SS from Porto on 13 Sep 2022, 14:34