Why Was Russian Intellectual Aleksandr Dugin Targeted by Western Forces?
On August 21, Russian authorities declared the murder of the daughter of the Russian philosopher and politician Alexander Dugin (Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin), who is close to President Vladimir Putin, a "premeditated and planned crime."
The Russian Commission of Inquiry into Dugin's murder explained that "at the moment, it has been proven that an explosive device was planted under the car by the driver. Darya Dugina, who was driving the car, died instantly," Russia Today reported.
Darya is politically active within the Eurasian International Movement headed by her father.
She has been known for her support for Russian military operations in Ukraine, which is why Britain included her on the sanctions list under allegations that it is "working to spread misinformation about the conflict in Ukraine."
She also participated in political television programs, and because of her mastery of French, she was often hosted as an expert in French politics.
Her father, Aleksandr Dugin, is described by sources as one of the most prominent nationalist theorists and believed to be close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, with media reports even describing him as "Putin's brain."
Alexander Dugin, Russian Mastermind behind Russia's annexation of Crimea, AKA "Putin's brains", at the scene where his daughter, Dariya Dugin, was killed when her car exploded. Most likely from an assassination attempt that meant to target Dugin himself. pic.twitter.com/jCnVfJ6jAr
— Sergiy Slipchenko (@SergSlip1) August 20, 2022
Who is Aleksander?
Alexander is a political thinker and a strategic theorist. He was born in 1962 to the father of a general in the Military Intelligence Service of the General Staff of the former Soviet Union.
He studied aviation at the Moscow Institute, and although he later changed the course of his life, he adjusted his way to move on to the study of philosophy, to obtain a doctorate, and then limp on to political science to double his degrees with another doctorate.
Early in the years of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Dugin was active against what he saw as totalitarianism and authoritarianism and then participated in the popular uprising that led to the overthrow of Boris Yeltsin.
He did not let the moment of the fall of the Soviet Union pass without critical analysis, concluding that the great loss to his country was not due to the Cold War but to its belonging to what he calls the "land civilization" as opposed to the civilization of the sea and the Atlantic, in which Americans and Europeans alike innovated.
Finally, Dugin presented to the world his new book, "Salvation from the West: Eurasia and Indigenous Civilizations versus Atlantic Civilizations."
Dugin's Russian Orthodox roots are clearly visible through his books and in-depth analysis. One almost thinks that he is a supporter of the "city of God" in the face of the "city of the world," according to the division that San Agustin established in his historical masterpiece "The City of God."
Dugin pumped new blood into Russia's veins with Putin's accession to the Kremlin in 2000, moving from the opposition to the camp of "New Russia" defenders.
Non-Official Ideologue
Aleksandr Dugin has no official office in Russia. But the geopolitical thinker, in addition to his contributions to philosophy, has close ties to the Russian president and to a number of his political, military, and security personnel.
The man who has been described as the "Pope of Eurasianism" since the late nineties of the last century, when Vladimir Putin came to power, was an advocate for his country's alliance with China, India, and the Muslim world in the face of the West.
According to him, Russia should seek to weaken and dismantle the West, which wants to be alone in the dominant position on a global scale. Dugin's views were, at the time, not the mainstream of the Russian leadership.
Developments validated Dugin's view of the reality of Western intentions and undoubtedly strengthened his standing with the Russian leadership. However, his targeting was mostly not linked to his intellectual role alone
The extensive network of relationships he has forged with a large number of leaders and officials of non-Western powers, specifically in Turkiye, Iran, China, and India, has enabled him to contribute to bringing the views closer and closer between them and the Russian leadership or participating, as he did with Turkiye, in defusing tensions between them and Russia.
In press interviews, he said that he conveyed a message from Turkish president Erdogan to his Russian counterpart after the Turkish army shot down a Russian plane in Syria in late 2015.
Turkish circles opposed to Erdogan, as well as American and Western circles, accuse Aleksandr Dugin of conveying a warning in June 2016 from Russia to Erdogan Russian leadership about the coup that was being plotted against him, which contributed to its failure the following July.
His close trust in the Kremlin and his extensive network of contacts have qualified him to play a role in line with his convictions, helping to overcome obstacles to the creation of a Eurasian alliance against Western domination, which may explain one of the main motives for targeting him. But the location and timing of this process also carry important meanings.
Journalist Walid Sharara says that the attempted assassination of the thinker Aleksandr Dugin, which led to the death of his daughter Darya, shows that the war of "weakening Russia," the goal announced by U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin of the confrontation the Western camp is waging with it in Ukraine, has more vicious and dangerous dimensions than those that took place between the two international camps during the Cold War.
"In the latter, for example, in the days of the Afghanistan War, despite the tremendous support provided by the United States and its allies to the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet army, it adhered to a clear red line: not to undertake any security action within the borders of the Soviet Union," Sharara wrote.
"The same was true of Moscow's behavior during the Vietnam War, as it strongly supported Vietcong fighters against American occupiers without prompting them, or any party supporting them, to launch attacks inside American territory."
A follow-up to the developments of the war in Ukraine indicates that these rules are no longer in force. It is likely that the series of "mysterious explosions" that took place in Crimea and in the Russian province of Belgorod bordering Ukraine were caused by attacks by the Ukrainian army after obtaining more advanced Western weapons and missiles, sources admitted to Western media.
"These developments, combined with the U.S. announcement of a new $800 million arms deal to Kyiv, have led the secretary of Russia's National Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, to accuse the West of preparing for an open armed conflict with his country," Sharara noted.
"There is no doubt that the attempt to assassinate Dugin suggests that the Western camp, which is running the military battle on the Ukrainian scene, has decided in parallel to adopt security operations to destabilize Russia's internal stability. Washington's goal, as Austin has revealed, is to weaken it, at whatever cost," he concluded.
