Fingers pointed at Kyiv are now turning to Israel

By Arvin Qaemian

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 sparked a catastrophic war that is still remembered as the “Great War”.

The assassination of Darya Dugina, a 29-year-old Russian political commentator, and the daughter of Russia’s most renowned nationalist philosopher, Alexander Dugin, did not spark the hostilities that were already raging in Ukraine. However, according to Robert Wright, a prominent political expert, Darya’s killing could further escalate the conflict in Ukraine by sparking widespread outrage and a national desire for revenge.

Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said last Monday that Ukraine’s role in “terrorist actions” was no coincidence, as investigations implicated Kyiv in the murder of Darya Dugina. “The West should understand that the involvement of the Kyiv regime in terrorist activities is not an accident or an isolated example. It is not even a standard of behavior. Everything is much more serious. of a nationalist mentality combined with terrorism as a tool to implement a criminal ideology,” Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel.

The Kremlin issued a statement in which President Putin offered his condolences to the Dugin family, stating that “a heinous and cruel crime has tragically shortened the life of Daria Dugina, a brilliant and talented woman with a truly Russian heart”. As a journalist, scientist, philosopher and war correspondent, she sincerely served the people and the motherland, illustrating with her deeds what it means to be a Russian patriot.”

There have been many conjectures regarding the identity and motives of the killer, although nothing is known for certain.

According to Le Figaro, investigations by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) indicated that a mother who allegedly served in the Ukrainian secret service had slipped into Moscow on orders from Kyiv. The FSB revealed that Darya’s vehicle had been planted with an explosive device by a Ukrainian veteran spy, identified as “Natalia Vovk, 43”. After detonating the bomb using a remote control, the culprit and her daughter fled overland to Estonia.

The FSB further added that “to organize the murder of Dugin and to obtain information about his way of life, she [the assassin] and his daughter rented an apartment in Moscow in the building where the victim lived.”

The tragedy of this murder is all the more poignant because Daria was not the target of the assassination operation. According to preliminary FSB investigations, Darya’s father was the main target of the fatal car bombing on Saturday evening August 20, where father and daughter took part in a day-long cultural festival on the outskirts of Moscow.

However, in a dramatic twist of fate, Mr Dugin took a different car at the last minute. Soon heartbreaking footage surfaced on social media platforms showing Mr Dugin clutching his head in anguish as Darya’s vehicle was engulfed in fire around 9pm local time.

Nevertheless, Mykhailo Podolyak, one of the main advisers of the Ukrainian president, categorically rejected his country’s involvement in the assassination of Darya Dugina.

Alexander Dugin is an ultra-Orthodox ascetic and the most prominent ideologue of eurasism in recent decades. The Western media gave him different and sometimes offensive epithets: “Putin’s mastermind”, “Russia’s new Rasputin” and “the guru of Slavic imperialism”.

After a course similar to that of his father, Darya spent a year studying philosophy in France. His master’s thesis focused on Plato. Darya began cooperating more extensively with her father in her twenties, and devoted all of her time to political campaigns and as a fervent nationalist. She became infatuated with her father’s ideas, as recorded in his best-known work, “The Fourth Political Theory”, and gradually she mirrored her father’s ideology. She used the pseudonym “Darya Platonova” for her writings. Both father and daughter were sanctioned by the United States for their ideas.

Alexander Dugin has been considered Moscow’s most salient political strategist who brought Putin closer to Iran, hoping to resurrect Eastern spiritualism as opposed to Western liberalism.

Dugin argues that Eastern Orthodox Christianity has more affinity with Shia Islam than either Protestantism or Catholicism. Additionally, Dugin was quoted as saying, “The annual Arbaeen procession – which marks the end of the 40-day mourning period for Imam Hussein [PBUH] martyrdom in 680 AD – 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 accomplished nothing for humanity but to create calamities.”

Dugin hopes that unity among Eurasian nations can ultimately help form a strong Eurasia, or, as Sir Halford J. Mackinder has described it, the Heartland of the world, vis-a-vis Anglo-Saxon Atlanticism.

When General Qassem Soleimani was assassinated in a US terrorist attack, Dugin hailed him as a true hero, saying: “He was the hero of the struggle not only for the interests of Iran and the Shiite world , but also the hero of the entire resistance front. against the hegemony of [Western] imperialism. The assassination of General Soleimani was a catastrophic disaster for Russian military strategists.”

But there is still a tantalizing question that needs to be answered. Who killed Darya Dugina?

Irrespective of Moscow’s incendiary anti-Kyiv rhetoric and official Russian accusations, Ukrainian officials are aware that it is not in their interest to play the game of state-sponsored assassinations since the capabilities Russia’s intelligence capabilities are far beyond Kyiv’s, as the Russians can retaliate with extreme severity.

On the other hand, it would be quite absurd to assume that Darya’s murder was an inside job since Moscow does not need the death of an obscure academician to reawaken Russian patriotism or, even worse, demonstrate its security vulnerability.

Consequently, many observers have begun to suspect a theory lurking in dark Mossad operating rooms.

It is likely that Darya’s dramatic death was an Israeli warning to the Kremlin to steer clear of regional allies Iran, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip and the Ansarullah movement in Yemen. [also known as Houthis].

To support this theory, one can cite a recent visit by a Houthi delegation to Moscow. The head of the Yemeni delegation and its chief negotiator, Mohammed Abdul Salam, said 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 can be strategically influential without specifying the nature of these changes.

The Kremlin has embarked on a campaign to forge alliances with new international players, such as the Ansarullah movement, to thwart growing Western pressure it has faced since late February due to its military intervention in Ukraine. In addition, Moscow is seeking to slash persistent US efforts to improve crude oil production by obstructing the passage of tankers through the Bab al-Mandab strait. Thus, the alleged motivation for Russia’s budding ties with the Sanaa-based government may be a latent desire to establish a naval base on the shores of the Red Sea.

Moreover, in the past six months, at least two Hamas delegations have visited Moscow, suggesting that the Russians have partially gone beyond 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 over a shipment of Russian weapons 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 moribund regime desperately trying to stop its doomsday clock from ticking.

“Russia” and “our empire” were among the first words we taught her as a child, Alexander Dugin said in a trembling voice at his daughter’s funeral.