Pope Francis has sparked outrage in Ukraine for referring to Darya Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian ultra-nationalist killed by a car bomb near Moscow, as an innocent victim of war.
Ukraine’s Ambassador to the Vatican slammed the pontiff in a highly unusual move, saying the comments were ‘disappointing.’
Pope Francis had earlier on Wednesday at a collective audience expressed condolences over the death of Russian Darya Dugina, calling her an “innocent victim.”
“I think of the poor girl who was blown up by a bomb placed under the car seat in Moscow. The innocent pay the price of war.”
Pope Francis said he turned his thoughts to Russia and Ukraine on that day. “I pray that she, the Mother of God, will look to these two beloved countries and lead them to the peace we all so desperately need,” he said.
On the evening of August 20, an explosive device went off in a Toyota Land Cruiser car on a road near the village of Bolshiye Vyazyomy, the Moscow Region.
The car caught fire and it was found out later that the explosive device had been planted under the vehicle’s floor on the driver’s side.
Dugina, who was driving the car, died on the spot.
The Russian Federal Security Service’s Public Relations Center later announced that the murder had been solved, saying that the the bomb was prepared by the Ukrainian Special Services and that the perpetrator was Ukrainian citizen Natalia Vovk. Ukraine has denied any involvement in the car bombing.
Alexander Dugin, Darya’s father, has long advocated the unification of Russian-speaking and other territories in a new Russian empire that would include Ukraine.
Darya Dugina broadly supported her father’s ideas and appeared on State TV in her own right to offer support for Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
In a Tweet, Andrii Yurash, Ukraine’s ambassador to the Holy See, said the pope’s words were ‘disappointing’.
‘How (is it) possible to mention one of ideologists of (Russian) imperialism as innocent victim? She was killed by Russians,’ he said.
Francis called the war ‘madness’. He said Ukrainian and Russian children had been killed and that ‘being an orphan knows no nationality’.
In his Tweet, Yurash said: ‘Can’t speak in same categories about aggressor and victim, rapist and raped’.
The Vatican did not immediately respond to Yurash’s comments.
But Ukrainian and Western officials, as well as a number of prominent Russian commentators, believe the car bomb was likely executed by agents loyal to Putin after Dugin criticised the Russian president in a public Telegram post.
Hundreds of people yesterday attended Dugina’s funeral service in a large television studio in Moscow, where she worked as a prominent pro-Kremlin broadcaster.
A huge portrait of Dugina, 29, hung above her coffin which was heavily guarded and surrounded by flower wreaths and streamers bearing the colours of the Russian Federation.
Russian political scientist and ideologue Alexander Dugin (bottom left) mourns for his daughter Darya Dugina, who was killed in a car bomb attack, during a memorial service in Moscow, Russia August 23, 2022
The message from Putin read: ‘Accept my sincere condolences and words of support due to the hardest, irreplaceable loss you suffered.
‘A vile, cruel crime ended the life of Darya Dugina, a bright, talented person with a true Russian heart – kind, loving, open and sympathetic.
‘A journalist, a scientist, a philosopher, a military correspondent, she honestly served the people, the Fatherland, and proved with her life what it means to be a patriot of Russia.
‘The memory of Darya Dugina will be forever kept by her close people and friends, her comrades.
‘Wishing you strength and fortitude in this mournful hour,’ the message concluded.
Dugin was later pictured sobbing into his hands on stage as Dugina’s mother stood by her coffin to pay her final respects.
But Ukrainian and Western officials, as well as a number of prominent Russian commentators, believe the car bomb was likely executed by agents loyal to Putin after Dugin criticised the Russian president in a public Telegram post.
Hundreds of people yesterday attended Dugina’s funeral service in a large television studio in Moscow, where she worked as a prominent pro-Kremlin broadcaster.
A huge portrait of Dugina, 29, hung above her coffin which was heavily guarded and surrounded by flower wreaths and streamers bearing the colours of the Russian Federation.
Russian political scientist and ideologue Alexander Dugin (bottom left) mourns for his daughter Darya Dugina, who was killed in a car bomb attack, during a memorial service in Moscow, Russia August 23, 2022
The message from Putin read: ‘Accept my sincere condolences and words of support due to the hardest, irreplaceable loss you suffered.
‘A vile, cruel crime ended the life of Darya Dugina, a bright, talented person with a true Russian heart – kind, loving, open and sympathetic.
‘A journalist, a scientist, a philosopher, a military correspondent, she honestly served the people, the Fatherland, and proved with her life what it means to be a patriot of Russia.
‘The memory of Darya Dugina will be forever kept by her close people and friends, her comrades.
‘Wishing you strength and fortitude in this mournful hour,’ the message concluded.
Dugin, a bearded Rasputin-esque figure who some believe may have been the intended target of the bombing, sat forlornly alongside Dugina’s mother at the funeral.
When the moment came for him to deliver a speech, he told funeral-goers: ‘I wanted to raise my daughter the way I see an ideal human, so first of all it was about belief.
She spent her entire childhood in Orthodox camps. But I also wanted her to be a smart Orthodox person, so with her mother we advised her to become a philosopher, and she became one.
‘She died for Russia, on the front line… She lived for victory, and died in the name of victory.’
He said her last words to him before getting into her Toyota Land Cruiser were: ‘Papa, I feel like a warrior, I feel like a hero.’
Russian authorities pinned the assassination on alleged Ukrainian spy Shaban-Vovk, who they say sneaked into Russia – bringing her 12-year-old daughter with her – and tracked Dugina for weeks before activating the deadly car bomb and fleeing into Estonia, all without being caught.
The chain of events leading up to Dugina’s death as presented by Russia’s security service included Shaban-Vovk changing her appearance and vehicle number plates to hoodwink guards before fleeing from Russia across the Estonian border.
The FSB also released what it claimed was the Ukrainian mother’s military documents, including a passport-style photo of her.
But commentators questioned why Shaban-Vovk, if she is indeed a Ukrainian spy responsible for the killing, would leave her military identification behind and accused Russian authorities of producing a fake to pin the assassination on Ukraine.
Estonian foreign minister Urmas Reinsalu today dismissed the wild claims as a ‘Russian information operation’.
‘We regard this as one instance of provocation in a very long line of provocations by the Russian Federation, and we have nothing more to say about it at the moment,’ said the minister, adding Russia had made no request to extradite the alleged killer.
The head of the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS) in the Estonian capital Tallinn, Indrek Kannik, claimed that Dugina had far more likely been killed by an internal Russian operation.
‘It is possible that this was the FSB’s own operation, since these people had become a threat.
‘At the same time, it is convenient to blame it on the Ukrainians. Now we are seeing that Estonia can also be dragged in to this.’
Ukraine has strongly denied any role in the killing in Moscow, accusing the Kremlin of a ‘false flag’ operation to blame Kyiv.
Meanwhile, respected Russian expert Andrei Piontkovsky said the murder of Dugina was professional, indicating that the Russian secret services are likely involved, while Russian-American historian Dr. Yuri Felshtinsky claimed the attack would have been authorised by the Kremlin.
‘The blowing up of the car of the famous Russian fascist and ideologist of the Putin regime, Alexander Dugin, was organised, it seems, by the Russian security services,’ said Felshtinsky, author of ‘Blowing up Ukraine’.
‘On the latest Russian reports, the bomb was attached to Dugin’s car inside his guarded compound. Ukraine focuses on military targets, unlike Russia, and there is no discernible gain in attacking one of Putin’s media puppets or allocating scarce operatives inside the Russian Federation to such a goal that is meaningless to the liberation of Ukraine.
‘The Kremlin will, however, likely exploit it to make it seem as if Ukraine is stooping to its own tactics of bombing harmless civilians in Ukraine.’
Dugin had claimed the war and ‘desperate resistance of the Atlanto-Nazi regime in Kyiv’ demands from Russia ‘internal transformations’.
The tone was strongly critical of Putin.
‘The Supreme Commander-in-Chief [Putin] said that we haven’t really started anything yet. Now we have to start. Whether you want it or not, we’ll have to,’ the post read.
‘Now the question is not whether the government wants or does not want change. Such changes are simply inevitable… The mighty forces of history have come into play, the tectonic plates have shifted. Let the old regime bury its dead.
‘A new Russian time is coming. And it’s coming irreversibly.’
