'Car bomb' kills Russian nationalist's daughter

Reuters:  Darya Dugina, daughter of prominent ideologue Alexander Dugin, was killed after a suspected explosive device detonated on the Toyota Land Cruiser she was traveling 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.

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

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