What the Dugin assassination tells us about Russia
▻https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/alexander-dugin-darya-putin-russia-ukraine-assassination
[Darya Dugina] was a prominent figure in her own right, a journalist working for an outfit Washington says is owned by Russian businessman Evgeny Prigozhin – under sanctions in the West for being the godfather of both the Wagner mercenary group and the infamous social media ‘troll farms’ – who had been a cheerleader for the war in Ukraine. Indeed, she was under sanctions, with the UK government describing her as a ‘frequent and high-profile contributor of disinformation in relation to Ukraine and the Russian invasion of Ukraine’.
Nonetheless, inevitably there is a widespread assumption that the real target was her father. The car was said to have been his, although other accounts say it was registered in her name. Either way, he would have been in it had he not at the last moment chosen to return home another way. No one has yet claimed responsibility, but in the charged political environment of the moment, everyone is blaming their favourite villain.
[...] This murder will only add to the #Dugin myth, one he himself has so assiduously developed. There are many in the West happy to take him at face value, as ‘Putin’s Brain’ or ‘Putin’s Rasputin’. He is not, though, and never has been especially influential. He has no personal connection to Putin, but rather is just one of a whole breed of ‘political entrepreneurs’ trying to pitch their plans and doctrines to the #Kremlin .