Europe
2022.08.21 21:07 GMT+8

Ukraine conflict - day 179: Car bomb targets Putin ally, warning of independence day attacks

Updated 2022.08.21 21:07 GMT+8
Tim Hanlon

A girl stands on top of a destroyed Russian military equipment on Khreshchatyk street in Kyiv. Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP

TOP HEADLINES

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Ukrainians to be vigilant ahead of Wednesday's celebrations to mark 31 years of independence from Soviet rule. "We must all be aware that this week Russia could try to do something particularly ugly, something particularly vicious," he said.

• Curfew in Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, is to be extended for the entire day on Wednesday, said regional Governor Oleh Synehub. The curfew usually runs from 10 pm to 6 am in the northeastern city, regularly hit by Russian shelling.

• The daughter of an ultra-nationalist Russian ideologue who advocates Russia absorbing Ukraine into its territory was killed in a suspected car bomb attack outside Moscow on Saturday evening, Russian state investigators said. Darya Dugina, daughter of prominent ideologue Alexander Dugin, died in the Toyota Land Cruiser she was travelling in. READ MORE BELOW

• Zelenskyy congratulated Oleksandr Usyk on his boxing heavyweight win over Anthony Joshua saying Ukrainians never give up. He tweeted: "Defending the title of the world champion is a symbol of the fact that all Cossacks will not give up theirs, will fight for it and will definitely win!"

A Russian missile hit a residential area of a southern Ukrainian town not far from the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power station, wounding 14 civilians, Russian and Ukrainian officials said.

Dnipropetrovsk governor Valentyn Reznichenko wrote on Telegram that the city of Nikopol, which lies across the Dnipro river from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, was shelled on five different occasions overnight. He said 25 artillery shells hit the city, causing a large fire at an industrial premises and cutting power to 3,000 inhabitants.

Ukrainian forces had launched at least four strikes on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station claimed Vladimir Rogov, a Russia-appointed official in the nearby town of Enerhodar.

The southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv was hit with multiple S-300 missiles early on Sunday, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said on Telegram.

U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo warned that Russian entities and individuals were attempting to use Türkiye to bypass Western sanctions, during a call with Turkey's Deputy Finance Minister Yunus Elitas.

The Albanian Defense Ministry has that two of its soldiers were injured while trying to stop two Russians and one Ukrainian who were trying to enter a military plant in central Albania, the ministry said in a statement.

Investigators work at the site of a car explosion which killed Daria Dugina, daughter of Alexander Dugin. Investigative Committee of Russia / AFP

IN DETAIL

Daughter of Putin ally killed in suspected car bomb attack

The daughter of a Vladimir Putin ally who advocates Russia absorbing Ukraine into its territory was killed in a suspected car bomb attack outside Moscow on Saturday evening, Russian state investigators said on Sunday.

Darya Dugina, daughter of Alexander Dugin, was killed after a suspected explosive device detonated on the Toyota Land Cruiser she was travelling in, investigators from the Moscow region said in a statement.

Russia's TASS state news agency quoted Andrei Krasnov, someone who knew Dugina, as saying the vehicle belonged to her father and that he was probably the intended target.

Father and daughter had been attending a festival outside Moscow and Dugin had decided to switch cars at the last minute, Russian government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported.

TV footage accompanying the statement showed investigators collecting debris and fragments from the spot where the explosion happened.

Investigators, who described Darya Dugina as a journalist and political expert, said they had opened a murder case and would be carrying out forensic examinations to try to determine exactly what had happened.

They said they were considering "all versions" when it came to working out who was responsible for the crime.

Alexander Dugin, Darya's father, has long advocated the unification of Russian-speaking and other territories in a vast new Russian empire.

He wants that empire to include Ukraine where Russian forces are currently carrying out what Moscow calls a "special military operation" to demilitarize Ukraine, a conflict described as a war by most of Europe's leaders.

The influence of Dugin, who is on a U.S. sanctions list, over links to Putin has been a subject for speculation, with some Russia watchers asserting that his sway is significant and others calling it minimal.

Darya Dugina, who also went by the surname Platonova and was reported by Russian state media to be 30 years old, 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 statement in March, the U.S. Treasury said Dugina, the chief editor of the United World International website, which has suggested Ukraine would "perish" if admitted to the NATO military alliance, had been put on a U.S. sanctions list.

Source(s): AFP
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