History of Darya Dugina in Timeline
December 1992
Darya Aleksandrovna Dugina (Russian: Да́рья Алекса́ндровна Ду́гина; 15 December 1992 – 20 August 2022), also known under the pen name Daria Platonova (Russian: Дарья Платонова), was a Russian journalist, political scientist, and activist. She was the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, a supporter of Vladimir Putin and a far-right political philosopher, whose support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine she shared.
December 1992
Darya Dugina was born on 15 December 1992 in Moscow, Russia. She was the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin and his second wife, philosopher Natalya Melentyeva. In 2012/2013, while studying at Moscow State University, she was an intern at Bordeaux Montaigne University, specializing in Ancient Greek philosophy. Her MSU degree "focused on the political philosophy of late Neo-Platonism".
March 2022
According to the United States Department of the Treasury, which added her to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List on 3 March 2022, she was the chief editor of a disinformation website called United World International which states it was owned by Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, who also controlled the state-backed Wagner Group. At the same time, she served as a press secretary of her father.
June 2022
Dugina was an outspoken supporter of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In particular, she claimed that the war crimes against Ukrainian civilians by the Russian army during the invasion were staged. She mentioned that the war in Ukraine "serves to break the bridges of interaction between Russia and Europe, a struggle between two worldviews." In June 2022, she visited occupied Donetsk and Mariupol.
July 2022
Dugina visited the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, where she collaborated with British journalist Graham Phillips, who also worked for Russian state media. On 4 July 2022, she was sanctioned by the British government, which accused her of being a "frequent and high-profile contributor of disinformation in relation to Ukraine and the Russian invasion of Ukraine on various online platforms." She responded by saying that she is an ordinary journalist and should not have been sanctioned.
August 2022
As of 21 August 2022 , Associated Press and The Guardian articles concerning the death of Dugina and its aftermath state that the claim of a National Republican Army responsibility cannot be confirmed. A 22 August 2022 report from Reuters says that "Ponomarev's assertion and the group's existence could not be independently verified."
August 2022
Dugina was killed on 20 August 2022, when her car exploded on Mozhayskoye Highway in the settlement of Bolshiye Vyazyomy outside Moscow around 21:45 local time. She was driving to Moscow after attending the annual festival "Tradition," which describes itself as a family festival for art lovers.
August 2022
Interfax later reported that the FSB named an accomplice, a middle-aged male Ukrainian national, as providing logistical assistance to the primary assassin. Specifically, the FSB alleged that the accomplice provided the primary suspect with their false license plates and a Kazakhstani passport, and assisted in bomb assembly while in Russia. The FSB further alleged that the accomplice had also escaped to Estonia. The name of the alleged accomplice was released by FSB on 29 August 2022.
August 2022
On 21 August 2022, exiled former parliamentarian Ilya Ponomarev, via services read aloud a manifesto of the National Republican Army (NRA) calling for armed action against the regime and endorsed both the assassination and the manifesto. The following day, the anti-Putin exile group the Russian Action Committee blacklisted Ponomarev from attending the Free Russia Congress on grounds that he had "called for terrorist attacks on Russian territory." The committee's statement also implied that Dugina was a "civilian" who "did not take part in the armed confrontation," and similarly condemned the mockery of Alexandr Dugin following the attack as "a demonstrative rejection of normal human empathy for the families of the victims."
August 2022
On 23 August 2022, a farewell ceremony for Dugina was held at a TV studio in Moscow's Ostankino Tower, where she was lying in state; it was attended, among others, by far-right party leader Leonid Slutsky, propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov, and "Putin's chef," government and military contractor Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of A Just Russia — For Truth Sergey Mironov, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Sergey Neverov, National Bolshevik writer and activist Zakhar Prilepin, the head of the State television Rossiya Segodnya Dmitry Kiselyov, Governor of Khabarovsk Krai Mikhail Degtyarev, ultra-conservative oligarch Konstantin Malofeev and Vladimir Putin's representative Igor Shchyogolev. On the same day, the Russian President Vladimir Putin posthumously awarded her with the Order of Courage for "courage and selflessness shown in the performance of her professional duty."
August 2022
She was killed in August 2022 in a car bombing on the outskirts of Moscow.
October 2022
According to an assessment by the United States Intelligence Community reported by The New York Times on 5 October 2022, officials believe that parts of the Ukrainian government authorized the killing, with some US officials suspecting that Aleksandr Dugin was the intended target, albeit with Darya Dugina also being in the car. American officials also admonished Ukrainian officials over the killing, it reported, and said that they were not aware of the operation.
October 2023
On 23 October 2023, The Washington Post reported that the SBU had carried out dozens of assassinations in Russia since the invasion began, including the bomb attack that killed Darya Dugina, which Ukraine had previously denied.