Russians vow to strike Ukraine after daughter of Vladimir Putin's ally dies in car bomb

Russians vow to strike Ukraine after daughter of Vladimir Putin's ally dies in car bomb

Officials in Kyiv deny any links to the murder of Darya Durgina, but have warned of increased Russian attacks in the days ahead

Kremlin-linked officials have vowed to strike Ukraine as Russia blamed Kyiv for a car bomb attack in Moscow that killed a prominent pro-war ideologue - the first attack in the Russian capital since the start of the war.

Ukrainian officials denied they had any links to the murder of Darya Durgina, but have still warned of increased Russian attacks around Ukraine's Independence Day on August 24, which also marks six months since the start of the war.

"We should be aware that this week Russia may try to do something particularly nasty, something particularly cruel. Such is our enemy," Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's president, said in his regular video address.

Ukraine’s Southern Military Command said it had seen several new Russian missile-carrying warships arrive in the Black Sea in the past week. 

The city authorities in Kharkiv, northern Ukraine, also ordered a 36-hour curfew, and in Kyiv mass gatherings have been banned.

Ms Dugina was killed as she drove back to central Moscow in a Toyota Land Cruiser from a literary and arts festival on the outskirts of the city where her father, the prominent ultra-nationalist philosopher Alexander Dugin, had been speaking.

It is likely that Mr Dugin, who has been called "Putin’s brain" and has been close to the Kremlin, was the intended target. He was supposed to drive into Moscow with his daughter, but decided at the last minute to travel back in another car.

A video shot immediately after the bomb had exploded showed Mr Dugin holding his hands to his head in shock as he stares at the burning wreck. Rubble is strewn across the road.

Russian investigators said that Ms Dugina, 29, had died immediately "from an explosive device which had been placed under the bottom of the car on the driver’s side"”.

Ms Dugina was a journalist who had shot to prominence since the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. She had reported from Mariupol in southern Ukraine, where Ukrainian soldiers in the city’s steelworks had fought off Russian attacks for weeks.

She was also a regular on trips organised by the Russian government to rebel-held Donbas in eastern Ukraine.

Last month, the British government sanctioned Ms Dugina because she "is a frequent and high-profile contributor of disinformation in relation to Ukraine".

Ms Dugina was a vocal supporter of her father, who is perhaps the most prominent ultra-nationalist thinker in Russia. He advocates the Kremlin’s rule over a greater Eurasian state, and has called for the destruction of Ukraine.

After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Mr Dugin had encouraged the Kremlin to "kill, kill, kill" Ukrainians, and he celebrated Mr Putin’s full-scale invasion in February.

Analysts have questioned how influential Mr Dugin has been over the Kremlin's aggressive foreign policy, but he is nevertheless an important figurehead for hardcore Slavic nationalism.

Echoing her father’s aggressive tones during her appearances on Russian state TV, Ms Dugina also regularly advocated the destruction of Ukraine.

"We started this special operation very delicately and carefully, but we need to be tougher and less forgiving. We need to create more tribunals that will investigate the crimes of these sub-humans," she said.

The Russian government has not commented on the incident, but Kremlin-linked propagandists were accusing Ukraine of the attack even before investigators could finish picking through the debris.

Margarita Simonyan, one of Vladimir Putin’s favourite pro-war TV pundits, said that missile strikes should target Ukraine’s "decision-making centres".

Meanwhile, Tsargrad TV, the Russian orthodox and nationalist TV network where Mr Dugin is the editor and Ms Dugina had been a commentator, said that "Kyiv should shake" from missiles strikes.

But in Kyiv, the Ukrainian government denied that it had anything to do with Ms Dugina’s murder. "We are not a criminal state, like the Russian Federation, and moreover we are not a terrorist state," said Mykhailo Podolyak, a top presidential adviser.

Ukrainians have been celebrating in the lead-up to Independence Day by inspecting dozens of rusting and broken captured Russian tanks that the Ukrainian military towed into central Kyiv - a scene that is likely to irritate Mr Putin who had expected to capture the city within days.

On Sunday, Russian missiles also hit Odesa, the Ukrainian port city on the Black Sea which is vital to the UN-organised plan to export grain from Ukraine. 

Ukraine’s Southern Military Command said that five cruise missiles were fired from the Black Sea region. It said that its air defence systems shot down two missiles, but that three had hit grain infrastructure. Russia said it had hit ammunition sites. There were no casualties.

International concern is still focused on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, which has been controlled by Russian forces since the start of the war.

Both sides have accused each other of shelling the power plant and Ukrainian officials have warned that Russia could be planning a false flag attack to justify intensifying its own attacks.

The Ukrainian governor of the town of Nikopol said that on Sunday that at least 25 Russian shells had hit the town, which lies across the Dnipro River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, cutting power to 3,000 people.