‘No mercy’ for killers of Russian journalist – Lavrov
Moscow will show no mercy towards those responsible for the death of Darya Dugina, Russian Foreign Minister Segey Lavrov has said. Investigators have accused Kiev of masterminding a plot to kill the journalist and political commentator in a car bombing.
“I consider it a barbaric crime for which no forgiveness can be granted,” Lavrov said on Wednesday, when asked about the murder, which took place on Saturday evening.
The Russian investigation into the assassination will hopefully identify all the culprits soon, the minister added.
“Certainly, the organizers, the middlemen and the executors can get no mercy,” he said.
When asked whether the killing was “an act of terrorism or personalized retaliation,” Lavrov declined to offer a judgment. He made the comments during a joint press conference with his Syrian counterpart, Faisal Mekdad, in the Russian capital.
The FSB, Russia’s domestic security agency, identified a Ukrainian woman, Natalya Vovk, as the suspected assassin. She had entered Russia with her teenage daughter and rented an apartment in the same block where Dugina lived. She had allegedly been present at the same public event as the journalist, upon the conclusion of which the latter’s car was blown up, according to investigators. Vovk fled to Estonia before she could be apprehended, the FSB said.
There is an image of an ID bearing the suspect’s name circulating online indicating that she is a member of a Ukrainian National Guard unit known as the Azov Battalion, which has been widely reported as enlisting radical Ukrainian nationalists in its ranks.
Russia believes that Vovk acted on an order from the Ukrainian government. Kiev has denied any involvement in the bombing.
Dugina was the daughter of philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, a controversial thinker known for his advocacy of Russian exceptionalism. He is often described in the Western media as having behind-the-scenes influence on the Kremlin’s foreign policy. Darya, a public figure of some prominence in her own right, shared some of her father’s ideas about Russia’s place in the world.
The car targeted by the killer had belonged to Dugin, who was reportedly supposed to accompany his daughter but at the last moment ended up taking a different vehicle.
