A photo of the late Darya Dugina, who died in a car explosion Saturday night in Moscow at the age of 29 (she was born on December 15, 1992, in Moscow) (Link)

    Letter #104, 2022, Tuesday, August 23: Darya

    Hundreds attended a funeral in Moscow today for Darya Dugina, 29, the daughter of Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, 60, who is said to be (though this is not certain, and some say it is not true) a close advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    As a result of the car bombing that instantly took the life of Darya — and it seems the bomb was intended for her father, and would have killed him, except that she and her father, at the last moment, decided to change plans, and she drove his car while he came after her in another vehicle — there are now widespread fears that the war in Ukraine will widen, involving more terrorist bombings of this type, and so beginning to claim the lives of others not on the front lines in the war.

    Because this death could become the cause for a widening of the war, it is important to try to understand what happened, and why, though the full story still remains as yet unknown.

    ***

    The Russians have issued a warrant in Russia for a woman from Ukraine whom they claim was the agent that placed the bomb (see article below).

    The woman left Russia immediately after the Saturday night bombing, and she is said to be in Estonia, a NATO member. Russia has asked Estonia to extradite her to Russia.

    Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the US embassy has ordered all Americans to leave Ukraine immediately. Here is a story on that decision:

    US Alerts All Americans Still In Ukraine To “Leave Immediately” Ahead Of Expanded Russian Strikes (link)

    By Tyler Durden (the pseudonym of the editors at the financial website Zerohedge)

    Tuesday, August 23, 2022, 9:30 AM

    The US State department issued an emergency alert through the US embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday warning that any remaining Americans must leave Ukraine immediately. The alert says Russia plans to step up attacks on civilian infrastructure across the war-ravaged country.

    “The Department of State has information that Russia is stepping up efforts to launch strikes against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and government facilities in the coming days,” the notification reads. “Russian strikes in Ukraine pose a continued threat to civilians and civilian infrastructure. The U.S. Embassy urges U.S. citizens to depart Ukraine now using privately available ground transportation options if it is safe to do so.”

    This is concurrent with Ukraine’s Independence Day celebrations on Wednesday (tomorrow)… Events to commemorate Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union 31 years ago have been banned in the capital, as well as the country’s second largest city of Kharkiv, with President Vladimir Zelensky and regional officials telling the public to stay home as expanded missile strikes are likely.

    (…)

    Kyiv announced that for people in the city “it is forbidden to hold mass events, peaceful meetings, rallies and other events related to a large gathering of people.”

    Over the weekend, just hours after the assassination of Alexander Dugin‘s daughter Darya Dugina outside of Moscow on Saturday, Ukraine’s Zelensky warned that “particularly ugly” attacks are likely coming.

    “We must all be aware that this week Russia could try to do something particularly ugly, something particularly vicious,” Zelensky said in his nightly public address.

    “One of the key tasks of the enemy is to humiliate us, Ukrainians, to devalue our capabilities, our heroes, to spread despair, fear, to spread conflicts … Therefore, it is important never, for a single moment, to give in to this enemy pressure, not to wind oneself up, not to show weakness,” he said of expected increased Russian attacks on independence day.

    (…)

    Fears of even greater escalation also loom given recent Ukrainian attacks deep inside Crimea, which hadn’t happened during the opening months of the war.

    [End, story about the US Embassy alert]

    Russian philosopher and political activist Alexander Dugin at the funeral today in Moscow of his murdered daughter, Darya Dugina, 29, whose car exploded on Saturday night in Moscow, killing her instantly (Photo credit)

    Hundreds in Moscow for Dugina’s funeral. Message from Patriarch Kirill to her father (link)

    From the Italian Catholic website Il Sismographo (link)

    August 23, 2022

    Hundreds of people in Moscow attended the funeral of Darya Dugina, daughter of the Russian intellectual Alexander Dugin, killed Saturday night in an attack in the capital.

    Many participants in the funeral ceremony brought flowers to the Ostankino television center where the young woman’s black and white portrait was displayed on an open coffin, sitting next to the father and mother dressed in black.

    “She died for the people, for Russia, at the front. The front is here,” Dugin said at the beginning of the ceremony.

    ***

    Death of Darya Dugin, the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill writes to Alexander Dugin

    The message of the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church to Aleksander Dugin:

    “Dear Alexander Gelevich! It is with deep sorrow that I received the news of the tragic death of your daughter. Darya Alexandrovna was known in Russia and abroad as an active public figure, a brilliant journalist and a talented science researcher. Being the heir to her work, and despite her young age, she managed to achieve significant success in her chosen field, earning the gratitude and respect of her colleagues. In the days of difficult related trials. to the loss of loved ones, the words of Sacred Scripture sound like a consolation: “If we live, we live for the Lord; if we die, we die to the Lord, therefore, whether we live or die, it is always the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8). May the merciful Lord of Heaven and Earth rest the soul of His servant Darya in the villages of the righteous and create an eternal memory for her. ”

Another photo of the late Darya Dugina, a journalist who died in a car explosion Saturday night in Moscow at the age of 29 |  Photo Credit

    Italian Catholic Author Aurelio Porfiri on Death of Alexander Dugin’s Daughter

    On the death of a young girl (link)

    By Aurelio Porfiri

    August 23, 2022

    Two days ago, when I woke up, I found in the newspapers the news of the attack that brutally killed Darya Dugina, 30, daughter of the well-known Russian traditionalist thinker Aleksandr Dugin. I know Professor Dugin’s work from reading some of his books; they contain ideas that I sometimes share, sometimes not.

    Looking at Darya’s photo, I was struck by what also strikes me in observing the photos of young women and men taken by death in the prime of life: a sense of the injustice done to those who had their whole lives before them and then suddenly are no longer.

    Death is certainly a moment of transition that gives us pause. I love Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus very much and I define her as a “disconcerting saint” precisely because of the way she faced death at the age of 24, invoking it as the goal of all her wishes because she would see what she had always hoped to see. I have to say that every time I read her words or her story I get a thrill; it’s something that, at least at the moment, far exceeds my own abilities.

    Darya believed in her father’s ideas and actively supported him.

    In fact, at the time of the attack, the two were returning from a festival on Tradition, and the father, at the last moment, switched cars, thus escaping the attack.

    I don’t know where the responsibility for the attack lies, and I don’t want to get into a discourse on assigning guilt or speculating on reasons – a much bigger discussion than this short article.

    What really strikes me is to look at the photos of this beautiful girl and think about what she could have been if she had had the power to do so: perhaps becoming a leading intellectual, or the mother of a future genius who would contribute to the well-being of humanity.

    And this applies not only to Darya but to all those who are snatched from life by the hands of other men and women.

    She would have been the ideal woman for someone, the indispensable friend for someone else. She would have wiped away a few tears and hugged someone when they needed her.

    She, like many other young people, now becomes a hole in the lives of many – and this because of those who thought to replace God with themselves, God who alone has dominion over our life and our death.

    And the fact that God regulates our lives does not make the moment of death less painful for us, but it does not make it as irrational as when other humans willingly take what they should never assume to themselves.

    Of course, sometimes there are events where killing is part of the event, like wars. And wars, let’s face it, are part of who we are.

    But is killing a person driving back from a festival an act of war? Was she in battle?

    I have never met Darya, but I know some people who have met her and wrote about her after the attack.

    They say she was a very dedicated girl who followed in her father’s footsteps, even though she didn’t want to be crushed by his shadow.

    She, too, felt that a world without roots is a world that turns into a nightmare: a world that opposes spirit with matter, and deprives us of a meaning and a goal that accounts for the fact that at a certain moment, as Heidegger, a philosopher loved by her father, said, we are “thrown into the world.”

    But we want to think that it is not all there is, that there is another world that awaits us, where we will see again those who loved us, and where we will enjoy eternal bliss.

    May Darya have preceded us to that place where, as Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus said, there is endless joy. Aurelio Porfiri, Rome, Italy. Porfiri, whose official title in Italy is Maestro Aurelio Porfiri, is an accomplished organist, music composer, and traditional Catholic author. He is a contributor to Inside the Vatican magazine.

    Russian Authorities Claim They Have Identified the Alleged Assassin… (link)

    Here is a link to a story about the alleged Ukrainian agent whom the Russian authorities claim placed the bomb in the car that exploded, taking Darya’s life Saturday night (link). (Note: We do not know whether this claim by the Russian authorities is true or not.)

    ***

    “The Russian Federal Security Service (‘FSB’) has claimed that the assassination of Dugina was committed by a covert operative of Ukraine. The FSB has identified Natalia Vovk as the alleged assassin.

    “‘As a result of a complex of urgent operational-search measures, the Federal Security Service has solved the murder of Russian journalist Darya Dugina, born in 1992,’ the FSB announced, going on to emphasize the culpability of the Ukrainian government by stating that ‘the crime was prepared and committed by the Ukrainian special services[.]’

    According to the FSB’s investigation, Vovk entered Russia in July before situating herself in the same apartment building that Dugina resided in. Vovk would then follow Dugina to the festival in which the explosive device that led to her death was planted. Vovk, who was accompanied by her 12-year old daughter, fled to Estonia following the assassination, according to Russian intelligence. Following her identification, Russian law enforcement agencies declared their intent to seek her extradition.

    “Following Dugina’s assassination, Ukraine was naturally implicated as being behind the murder given her father’s significant, albeit enigmatic, reputation as one of Vladimir Putin‘s most influential ideologues. Kiev urgently washed its hands of any involvement as advisor Mykhailo Podolyak stated ‘Ukraine, of course, has nothing to do with yesterday’s explosion[.]’

    “Although Ukrainian officials denied any involvement in the attack, President Volodymyr Zelensky warned of his anticipation that Dugina’s murder would inextricably result in the intensification Russia’s military campaign.”

    [End, report on the claim of Russian authorities to have identified the assassin]

    ***

    Patriarch Kirill calls nationalism a cancerous tumor that can affect entire nation (link)

    Moscow, August 22, Interfax (link)Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia today warned about the danger of nationalism, which, in combination with giving up historical memory, can lead to the collapse of an entire society.

    “The nationalism disease can affect any nation, especially if their spiritual immunity is weakened by proud self-extolling, giving up historical memory and ideals of good-neighborliness, peacefulness and mutual respect. How important it is to prevent the growth of this cancerous tumor, which will inevitably bring death to the whole healthy organism! How important it is to prevent feelings of hatred, pride and cruelty from taking a place in our hearts as well,” the Patriarch said in his address to congress participants at the Army 2022 international military-technical forum.

    “The global responsiveness and all-humanity” of Russian spirit, which Dostoyevsky wrote about, are now manifested under new circumstances, the Patriarch said.

    “Defending historical truth and defending the suffering brothers in blood and spirit, our people achieve a difficult and very responsible mission: to return to the world values it is trying to give up in its craziness. These are unshakeable values: faith in God and traditional moral principles, commitment to the ideas of brotherliness and love, mercy and spiritual nobility,” the Patriarch said.

    Societal unity and strong faith are needed in order for this “life-changing mission” to be achieved, Patriarch Kirill said.

    [End, remarks of Patriarch Kirill on nationalism]

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