Hundreds of people have lined up in Moscow to pay tribute to Darya Dugina, the murdered daughter of one of Russia’s most prominent nationalist thinkers, hailing her as a martyr whose death must be avenged with victory in the war in Ukraine.
Dugina, the daughter of ultra-nationalist Alexander Dugin, was killed in a car bomb attack outside the capital on Saturday. Moscow has accused Ukrainian intelligence agencies of orchestrating his assassination, a claim Kyiv has denied.
Her father, Dugin, 60, who for decades pushed for a new Russian state to annex territory from countries such as Ukraine, told mourners that his daughter “died for the people, she died for Russia”.
“The huge price we have to pay can only be justified by the highest achievement, our victory,” said a visibly emotional Dugin.
“He lived for victory, and he died for victory. Our Russian victory, our truth, our Orthodox faith, our state.”
A large black-and-white portrait of 30-year-old Dugina, who appeared to be close to his father and worked as a nationalist media commentator, hung on a wall behind his coffin.
Dugina’s death on Saturday night was followed by calls from Moscow’s political elite for renewed strikes in Ukraine, prompting fears in Kyiv of further attacks to coincide with Ukraine’s independence day on Wednesday.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Monday that a Ukrainian citizen, who arrived in Russia in late July with her 12-year-old daughter, was behind Dugina’s murder. The FSB said that after the murder, the woman and her daughter fled across the border to Estonia. Ukraine has repeatedly denied Kyiv’s involvement in the car bombing and Estonia dismissed the Russian claim as a “provocation”.
The funeral ceremony, held Tuesday in a hall in Moscow’s television center, was attended by a number of pro-Kremlin businessmen and high-level Russian politicians. The parliamentary leaders of the three main pro-Kremlin parties spoke at the service, praising Dugina as a patriot and vowing to pursue those who ordered the killing.
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Konstantin Malofeev, a wealthy conservative pro-Kremlin businessman close to the Dugin family, said Dugina was a martyr whose death would make Russia “stronger” in its fight against Ukraine.
“The people who fight against us do not understand that the Russian people are not only made up of those who are alive now, but they are made up of those who lived before us and who will live after. And we will grow stronger with the blood of our martyrs.
“And thanks to the untimely end of our beloved Dasha [Darya] We will definitely emerge victorious in this war,” he said.
In a particularly dark speech, Leonid Slutsky, leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, called on Russians to unite, saying: “Regardless of our political parties, faith and age, there can only be one approach: one country, one president, one victory.”
Slutsky’s words drew instant comparisons on Russian social media to the infamous Nazi-era slogan: “One people, one empire and one leader.”
Also in attendance was Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman closely linked to Vladimir Putin who is under Western sanctions over his links to the private military group Wagner.
“Dasha was the first stone of Russian greatness and Russian strength. And the fact that they tried to remove that stone only made the foundation stronger,” Prigozhin told reporters outside the funeral.
Russian state television, which broadcast extensive coverage of the funeral, also hailed Dugina as a martyr.
“I think Dasha Dugina is our Joan of Arc,” political commentator Alexei Mukhin told Channel 1.
On Monday, Putin posthumously awarded Dugina the Order of Courage, writing in a condolence letter that she had “a true Russian heart: kind, loving, sympathetic and open.”