US intelligence believes parts of the Ukrainian government gave the go-ahead for a car bomb that killed the daughter of a staunch Putin ally in August, according to a report Wednesday.
Kyiv has unequivocally denied any involvement in the blast that killed Darya Dugina, 29, in front of her father, Putin loyalist and Russian ultranationalist Aleksandr Dugin, both after the blast and in response to the report by the New York Times.
But multiple sources, speaking to the outlet on condition of anonymity, said that the US intelligence community believes parts of the Ukrainian government were complicit in the attack. The sources said Washington admonished Kyiv for the assassination. . .
At the time of the attack, Kyiv denied any involvement.
“We are not a criminal state, unlike Russia, and definitely not a terrorist state,” Zelensky advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said at the time.
________________________________________________________
U.S. Believes Ukrainians Were Behind an Assassination in Russia
United States intelligence agencies believe parts of the Ukrainian government authorized the car bomb attack near Moscow in August that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian nationalist, an element of a covert campaign that U.S. officials fear could widen the conflict. . .
The closely held assessment of Ukrainian complicity, which has not been previously reported, was shared within the U.S. government last week. Ukraine denied involvement in the killing immediately after the attack, and senior officials repeated those denials when asked about the American intelligence assessment.
While Russia has not retaliated in a specific way for the assassination, the United States is concerned that such attacks – while high in symbolic value – have little direct impact on the battlefield and could provoke Moscow to carry out its own strikes against senior Ukrainian officials. American officials have been frustrated with Ukraine’s lack of transparency about its military and covert plans, especially on Russian soil.
Since the beginning of the war, Ukraine’s security services have demonstrated their ability to reach into Russia to conduct sabotage operations. The killing of Ms. Dugina, however, would be one of the boldest operations to date – showing Ukraine can get very close to prominent Russians.
Some American officials suspect Ms. Dugina’s father, Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian ultranationalist, was the actual target of the operation, and that the operatives who carried it out believed he would be in the vehicle with his daughter.
