Natural suspicion that Ukraine may be behind

 

Wolfgang Hansson 

 

The bomb may have been a warning to Putin 

 

Published: Today 20.37 

 

This is a commenting text. Analysis and positions are the writer's. 

 

COLUMNISTS 

 

That the immediate suspicion is that Ukraine is taking the war to Russia is no wonder.

 

But there could be several other explanations for the deadly attack on "Putin's brain" and his daughter.

 

The Russian security service FSB accuses Ukraine of being behind it, but in the absence of clear evidence about who planted the car bomb that killed Daria Dugin, it is only possible to speculate about possible reasons. 

 

There is much evidence that the real target was Alexandr Dugin, who is often described as "Putin's brain" because much of the ideological thinking presented by President Putin as reasons for attacking Ukraine originally comes from Alexandr Dugin. 

 

Dugin wants to see a Greater Russia, Eurasia, which includes almost the entire former Soviet Union and which is a counterweight to the United States. He believes that countries like Belarus and Ukraine have no right to exist as independent states. 

 

Despite the ideological proximity to Putin, Dugin is not considered to have been part of Putin's inner circle and his influence is questioned. 

 

Dugin's murdered daughter was also involved in ultra-nationalist circles. Dugin has been on the US sanctions list since 2015. His daughter, a journalist and television commentator, was put on the sanctions list in March this year. 

 

What still makes Alexandr Dugins believed to be the main target is that, according to Russian information, he took another car at the last moment and let his daughter take hers. The bombing comes just a week after Ukraine attacked two Russian bases in Russian-occupied Crimea. 

 

These attacks are seen as a new phase in the war in which Ukraine shows that it has the ability to strike inside Russian-controlled territory, either with more sabotage groups or with long-range rockets received from the West. 

 

The assassination attempt against Dugina could be another warning to Putin that Russia and Russian rulers could become a target if Putin continues his war.

 

 

 

Last Saturday, the daughter of "Putin's brain" was killed in a car explosion, Darja Dugina. Photo: AP 

 

Resistance men 

 

Russia's FSB claims that Ukrainian intelligence carried out the deed and also names a Ukrainian woman who planted the bomb. She allegedly rented an apartment in the same building where Dugina lived and shadowed her. After the crime, the FSB claims that she left Russia and went to Estonia. 

 

However, there are many question marks in the Russian version. The FSB, on the contrary, are known to have themselves carried out a number of political murders both at home and abroad. 

 

Officially, Ukraine denies any involvement and claims that, unlike Russia, it is not a "terrorist state". 

 

But given the high-profile propaganda war going on between Moscow and Kyiv, you can never fully trust what either side says. 

 

Ukraine has also not officially claimed responsibility for the attacks on the two Russian bases in Crimea. Probably so as not to anger the Russians unnecessarily. An attack inside Russian territory, on the outskirts of Moscow, against a person close to Putin would be even more sensitive. Therefore, it may be in Ukraine's interest to deny possible involvement. 

 

Of course, there may be other explanations. 

 

According to a Russian parliamentarian who defected to Ukraine, a group of Russian resistance fighters who call themselves the National Republican Army, whose aim is to overthrow Putin's regime, is behind it. 

 

His information is currently impossible to verify. But that forces inside Russia who want to weaken Putin's position carried out the attack is a possibility. Against that, we have so far seen no signs of internal contradictions in the Kremlin's inner or outer circle, apart from a few oligarchs who have aired dissatisfaction with the war.

 

Investigators at the scene where the car exploded. Photo: AP 

 

Can't win 

 

Another possible explanation is that the circle around Dugin and his daughter has become a burden for Putin despite supporting the war. At the same time, the ultra-conservative nationalists have criticized Putin for not hitting Ukraine hard enough. They want to see rocket attacks on government buildings in Kyiv and that the whole of Russia is put on a war footing with a general mobilization. 

 

The car bomb may be a warning from the Kremlin to these groups to fall in line and keep their criticism quiet. Shortly before the attack on Saturday, Alexandr Dugin wrote on social media that Russia could not win the war unless the entire society was put on a war footing. 

 

A fourth possible explanation is that there were personal motives behind the attack. During the 1990s, car bombs were a popular method of eliminating economic and political opponents. 

 

Nevertheless, it appears most likely that the attack is somehow connected to Russia's war against Ukraine.

The act shows that the longer time passes without clear Russian successes on the battlefield, the more difficult it becomes for Putin to pretend in front of his own subjects that there is no war going on at all.