Who is Aleksandr Dugin, whose daughter was killed in a car bomb: Aleksandr Dugin, a political scientist and theorist, is a key proponent of Eurasianism in contemporary Russia and is thought to have influence over President Vladimir Putin.
Daria Dugina, 29, a journalist and the daughter of political scientist and thinker Aleksandr Dugin, was killed in a car explosion in a Moscow neighborhood.
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) blames Ukraine for the murder, which Ukrainian authorities deny.
According to Russian authorities, a suspected explosive device blew up the Toyota Land Cruiser Dugina was driving. According to Russian official media, Dugin, 60, was the original target, and he only survived after changing his automobile at the last minute, resulting in the death of his daughter.
But why was Dugin chosen as a target?
Dugin is a staunch supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Dugin, who has been characterized as an ultranationalist, has attempted to influence Moscow through his work, which has mostly concentrated on the idea of a resurrected Russia.
Who is Aleksandr Dugin, whose daughter was killed in a car bomb?
He has long sought, under the banner of Eurasianism, the merger of Russian-speaking and other territories into a massive new Russian empire.
Dugin was harshly critical of the United States’ power in Eurasia in his 1997 book, “The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia,” and pushed for Russia to reestablish its own authority in the region, as well as split up other nations’ territories.
Although the book was on army reading lists, there is no evidence that Dugin ever had a direct influence on Russian foreign policy.
Dugin’s influence over Putin has also been a source of speculation, with some Russian watchers claiming that it is important and others claiming that it is negligible because he has no official ties to the Kremlin.
Idea of Eurasianism
The concept of Eurasianism, popularised mostly by Dugin, has become one of the most influential ideologies in the Kremlin. Many observers accuse him of being a Russian fascist, yet this does not appear to diminish his power.
He has been dubbed “Putin’s brain” since his stance on various subjects has coincided with Moscow’s actions. One such example is the military incursion in Ukraine, which Dugin has long supported.
Dugin’s Eurasianism envisions the establishment of a new Euro-Asian Empire that wants to unite all Russian-speaking peoples settled across all former Soviet republics in a single empire, in alliance with other Asian states.
Political scientist refers to it as the “Eurasian Union” or “Greater Russia,” but its borders have not yet been established. Dugin believes that globalism, as led by the United States, is a threat to Russia, Eurasia, and other civilizations.
There was a point when Dugin saw Putin as a Eurasianist leader, yet it would be incorrect to designate the political scientist as the ideological architect of post-Soviet Russia.
Scholars have differing perspectives, with some seeing Dugin’s Eurasianism as a geopolitical scheme to allow Moscow to seize former Soviet lands.
This line of thought was evident in the works of Soviet historian Lev Gumilyov, who traced Russian ancestors to Asia rather than Europe, as many other historians and researchers have done.
Dugin, too, uses Gumilyov’s theory to support his anti-Western political stance, putting Russia at the forefront to defend the causes of not only Eastern European Slavic nations but also Asian nations, against what he refers to as the West’s hegemonic liberal capitalist order.
Eurasianists, including Dugin, think that if such a clash occurs, the West, which is morally bankrupt, will be defeated by the Russia-led Eurasian alliance.