A close admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s daughter is believed to have been assassinated outside of Moscow.
According to official media, Darya Dugina died when her car caught fire while she was driving home.
Her father, Russian professor Alexander Dugin, sometimes known as Putin’s brain, is said to have been the intended target of the attack.
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Dugin is a well-known ultra-nationalist ideologue connected to Russia’s government.
According to Russian news outlet 112, the couple were meant to return from an event in the same car on Saturday evening, but Dugin opted to leave without his daughter at the last minute.
Unverified video posted to Telegram appears to show Dugin watching in surprise as emergency workers arrive at the scene of a smouldering car accident.
The BBC was unable to independently verify the video.
Police confirmed to Tass that a female driver was killed when an SUV exploded in Bolshiye Vyazemy, but provided no other information.
There has been no official comment from Russian officials as of yet.
Despite not working for the government, Dugina’s father is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has been called Putin’s Rasputin.
Darya Dugina, the philosopher’s daughter, was a well-known journalist who publicly supported the Ukrainian invasion.
She was sanctioned earlier this year by US and UK officials, who accused her of spreading misinformation about Russia’s intrusion on the internet.
She portrayed the struggle as a clash of cultures in an interview in May, and her was happy that both she and her father had been sanctioned by the West.
In 2015, the United States sanctioned Alexander Dugin for his alleged participation in Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
His publications are widely considered as having had a major effect on Vladimir Putin’s worldview, and he is seen as a fundamental intellectual architect of the ultra-nationalist ideology to which many in the Kremlin subscribe.
Dugin has long encouraged Moscow to be more active on the international stage, and he has advocated Russian military participation in Ukraine.
According to rumours, the daughter of ‘Putin’s brain’ was killed in a truck bombing.
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