Russian journalist and activist Daria Dugina, daughter of the political scientist and philosopher Aleksandr Dugin was killed by Kiev authorities. Writes Lucas Leiroz
In a recent article published by The New York Times, it was reported that US intelligence believes Kiev authorized the terrorist attack that murdered Russian journalist and activist Daria Dugina, daughter of the political scientist and philosopher Aleksandr Dugin. With this, the prevailing narrative on the case in the US takes on an accusatory tone against Ukraine, but the silence remains on the connivance of Western countries, which refused to help the Russians to capture those responsible for the attack.
The article cites unidentified sources that confirm the Russian version that Dugina’s death was caused by an intelligence operation planned, authorized, and executed by Kiev’s agents. According to NYT’s sources, information confirming the Ukrainian authorship of the attack was shared among US officials recently, thus corroborating the suspicions previously showed not only by Moscow, but also by many experts around the world.
The article, however, emphasizes that the operation was conducted exclusively by Ukrainian officials, with no US agents participating. Apparently, American intelligence did not take note of any planned Ukrainian attack and only obtained confirmation about the plans of its Ukrainian partners much later, with the Americans even “admonishing” Kiev for having conducted such a bold operation.
“The United States took no part in the attack, either by providing intelligence or other assistance, officials said. American officials also said they were not aware of the operation ahead of time and would have opposed the killing had they been consulted. Afterward, American officials admonished Ukrainian officials over the assassination, they said”, the article mentions.
It is curious to observe how the American media has suddenly changed its assertion, after months denying the veracity of the reports published by the Russian government on the case. Some Western journalists even spread conspiracy theories about the possible involvement of the Russian state itself in the attack, trying to create the story that Moscow had planned a false flag operation to justify a military escalation.
Over time, however, the veracity of the Russian explanation of the case became undeniable. Russia did not initiate any escalation in the conflict, which made the false flag plot lose credibility. And the very Ukrainian practice of murdering civilians became so well known that it could no longer be hidden. Thus, for the NYT disseminating this type of content precisely at this time serves American interests perfectly, as a large media vehicle is getting ahead in releasing an “official version” of the facts, preemptively taking control of the narrative.
It is important to emphasize that American intelligence does not act in defense of “press freedom” when it communicates data to the major newspapers. There are always well-defined strategies and clear objectives to be achieved. In this case, the objective is to isolate the blame for the attack in Kiev and to exempt Western countries from any co-responsibility before Russian investigations go even deeper and other data are revealed. Now, any eventual Western involvement could be called a “conspiracy theory”.
However, it is curious to think that there is such a lack of communication between the Ukrainian and American intelligences. The Ukrainian neo-Nazi regime not only serves as a proxy for American interests but is virtually guided by the US in all its decisions, with NATO agents acting among the strategists in Kiev. It is hard to believe that NATO was not even aware that an operation as complex as the one that killed Daria was being planned by its partners.
However, Western contribution to Daria’s assassination goes beyond that. Western countries refused to cooperate with Russia to capture Daria’s murderer even after Moscow published official data on the conclusion of its investigations. Daria’s assassin, the Ukrainian spy, member of the Azov Battalion Natalya Vovk, after committing the crime fled to Estonia and then to Austria. Russia asked for cooperation and asked European authorities to help find the killer but received no response. In fact, this can be interpreted as a form of “participation”, considering that Western countries deliberately prevented Russia from capturing a criminal responsible for the death of a civilian, even though there was sufficient evidence of Vovk’s involvement in the crime.
Now that the Americans have admitted that their proxies killed an innocent civilian – and assuming the narration that the Ukrainians acted alone to be true – the least the Europeans should do is a formal apology and start cooperating so that Ukrainian criminals do not freely cross their borders when they are wanted in other countries. And the US should commit to preventing Kiev from doing anything like that again.
It remains to be seen, however, if the West is really innocent in this case or if this NYT’s publication was just a strategic move to take control of the narrative before something more frightening is revealed in the near future.
Lucas Leiroz, researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.
