Did a Ukranian spy posing as a young mum really sneak into Russia to murder a Putin ally?

By Lucia Stein, Rebecca Armitage and Lucy Sweeney

Just days after Russian ultra-nationalist Darya Dugina died in a fiery explosion, the nation's principal spy agency claimed to have cracked the case with remarkable speed.

Giving details that could have been lifted straight from a James Bond film, the Federal Security Service (FSB) outlined how it believed she was murdered.

It claimed to have evidence that a mother serving in the Ukrainian National Guard's Azov regiment had slipped into Moscow on orders from Kyiv.

Russia designated the Azov military unit, which fights alongside the Ukrainian army in the country's east, a "terrorist" group earlier this month.

After crossing the border using false number plates, the woman dyed her blonde hair a dark brown to avoid detection.

She and her 12-year-old daughter then spent a month stalking the vocal Kremlin supporter, the spy agency said.

"In order to organise Dugina's murder and obtain information about her lifestyle, [she] and her daughter rented an apartment in Moscow in the block where the deceased lived," the FSB claimed in a statement.

After learning her habits, the alleged assassin planted a bomb under the driver's seat of Dugina's Land Cruiser four-wheel drive.

The 29-year-old was driving home after attending a music festival with her father when the FSB claims the Ukrainian spy finally made her move.

She remotely detonated the device, killing Dugina instantly.

"She was a journalist, scientist, philosopher, war correspondent, she honestly served the people, the fatherland, she proved by deed what it means to be a patriot of Russia," President Vladimir Putin said of her murder.

The FSB claims that Dugina was targeted because she comes from a prominent family.

Her father, Alexander Dugin, is a far-right ideologue who believes that Russia is at the heart of a Eurasian empire countering Western decadence.

Some claim he is "Putin's brain", convincing the Russian leader over years that invading Ukraine was his destiny.

Others say he's a fringe-dweller with minimal influence, who somehow built a mythical reputation outside Russia, akin to a modern-day Rasputin.

Unverified video appears to show Alexander Dugin, who was just up the road when his daughter's car exploded, staggering past debris and gripping his head in horror when he arrived at the scene.

But as howls of outrage and vows of reprisals were unleashed in Moscow, the FSB said the Ukrainian assassin was already making a dash for the border in her grey Mini Cooper.

They released a slew of details of the woman they claimed to be the killer: her passport photo, images from her social media accounts, as well as CCTV footage showing her crossing into Estonia in a neon pink hoodie and oversized sunglasses.

But given the investigation cannot be independently verified, the ABC has chosen not to include the name or photos of the alleged suspect.

Russian news outlets claim the woman and her daughter were last spotted checking into a hotel in Austria before the trail went cold.

There's just one problem with the FSB's account: Kremlin critics say it doesn't make any sense.

Who killed Darya Dugina?

Kyiv has strongly denied having any links to the murder, describing the FSB's hasty conclusions after a 48-hour investigation as "propaganda" from a "fictional world".

Ukraine's Azov regiment says the woman has never served in its ranks, and in fact it is, and always has been, a men-only unit.

And Estonia says no woman matching the FSB's description passed through its borders, and it hasn't had a single request from Russian authorities for information.

We may never know exactly who killed Darya Dugina or why.

Some speculate forces within the Kremlin concocted a so-called "false flag operation" to justify a new phase of the war in Ukraine, and to force potentially restless Russian elites back into line.

Others say it could be the work of an underground resistance group working to topple the Putin regime.

No matter who killed Dugina, her death has been transformed into a potential opportunity - and a potential risk - for Vladimir Putin.

And for some, it has brought back memories of the era before Putin came to power, when Russia was dominated by gang violence and instability.

Dugina's death brings back bad memories for Muscovites

The 1990s were a turbulent time in Russia. It was a decade which saw the demise of the Communist Party, failed coups, economic collapse, political upheaval and a rapid rise in violent crime.

Russia was undergoing a speedy process of reforms dubbed "shock therapy", designed to transition the Communist state into a full-fledged market economy.

But the seismic shift to Russia's economic structure resulted in crises - from 1991 to 1994 and then again from 1998 to 1999 - causing inequality to skyrocket, life expectancy to fall and long lines for food to once again become a familiar sight around the country.

As the walls of the Soviet Union crumbled and fell, from its ashes rose Russia's gangsters.

These organised criminal groups fought over the spoils of wealth from Russia's disintegrating empire, waging bloody street battles and holding cities at gunpoint.

Car bombs, drive-by shootings and knife attacks are etched in the minds of many who lived through this violent period, often accompanied by images of thugs in leather jackets "shaking down and brutalising helpless business owners".

Veterans from the Soviet War in Afghanistan were reportedly drawn to the criminal clans, utilising their skills as snipers and special forces officers in the art of organised crime.

As government and law enforcement struggled to keep pace with the changes taking place in Russia's society, gangs operated with impunity.

"In the 1990s, criminal clans really had huge influence and were a component of our lives," Andrei D Konstantinov, a Saint Petersburg-based mafia expert, told the New York Times.

But that all changed on New Year's Eve in 1999, when a former KGB officer turned political operative was made acting president.

Vladimir Putin promised to bring stability to Russia, putting an end to the blatant violence that had defined the country for more than a decade.

But it came at a price: in exchange for peace on the streets, Putin would impose authoritarian rule.

Dugina's death does not fit in neatly to a pattern of political assassinations

Not long after Putin took office, a pattern emerged of vocal opponents of the Kremlin meeting violent ends.

Political figures and journalists were gunned down in the street or fell mysteriously ill, while high-ranking separatists in the newly claimed Chechen Republic were tortured and executed.

Political journalist Anna Politkovskaya had already been detained by Russian troops while reporting on the Chechen War and believed she was poisoned by suspected secret agents during a flight before her untimely death.

In 2006, she was found dead in the lift of her apartment building. A young man in a baseball cap had shot her in the heart before silently slipping away.

The killing of one of Putin's fiercest critics, carried out on his 54th birthday, was thought by some to have been a presumptuous gift for the president.

Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov had also been an outspoken critic of Putin's for years before he was shot dead in central Moscow in 2015.

According to investigators, a white car pulled up next to Nemtsov as he was walking across the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge. Someone inside fired seven or eight shots, hitting their target in the head and heart, killing him instantly.

Not all of the Kremlin's enemies died by gunfire.

After Politkovskaya was shot, former KGB agent and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko accused Putin himself of sanctioning the murder.

Two weeks later, he took a fatal sip of polonium-laced green tea at an upscale hotel in London. Russia was officially found responsible for the murder last year.

Alexei Navalny fell ill in suspiciously similar circumstances in 2020, with the Russian opposition leader narrowly surviving exposure to the nerve agent Novichok.

While no poisoned teacups or handgun-wielding strangers have yet emerged in the details surrounding Darya Dugina's death, the killing perhaps resembles the assassination of another prominent figure in the early 2000s.

Akhmad Kadyrov, father and predecessor of the current Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, died in an explosion at a football stadium in Grozny in 2004.

The former rebel leader switched sides during the Second Chechen War and was hand-picked by Vladimir Putin to lead the republic after Russia took control.

But six months after he became president, Kadyrov was killed during a Soviet Victory Day parade, when a bomb went off in the VIP section of the stadium. Experts suspected the device had been sealed inside the concrete under his seat during recent renovations.

Just as speculation has swirled in the case of Darya Dugina, various theories emerged as to the culprit behind the Kadyrov attack.

Rebel Islamist leader Shamil Basayev later claimed to have paid $US50,000 for the hit on Kadyrov.

The public death of such an ally, under heavy guard and just two days after Vladimir Putin had been re-elected as Russian president, was seen as a significant humiliation for the Kremlin.

But it also provided an opportunity for Putin to install Kadyrov's son into power. The man known as Putin's Dragon has since used that position to pulverise Chechen dissent and maintain Russia's stronghold over the region.

No matter who killed Darya, it's an opportunity for Putin

The true identity of Darya Dugina's killer may forever remain a mystery.

As former British prime minister Winston Churchill once famously said:

"Kremlin political intrigues are comparable to a bulldog fight under a rug. An outsider only hears the growling, and when he sees the bones fly out from beneath it is obvious who won."

Whether she was killed by foreign agents or people closer to home, Russia watchers have no doubt she will be transformed into a martyr.

The death of a beautiful young woman from an important family is likely to send shockwaves through the oligarchs and elites who directly benefit from Vladimir Putin's power.

"I think the message that the killing is sending, even if we cannot interpret exactly who did it and who was the target, is that you can have a terrorist act inside Moscow now in the middle of the war," Marlene Laruelle of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University told NPR.

"This means that elites are suddenly not feeling secure anymore. The war is progressively coming to them inside their territory."

As his war in Ukraine stretches on, a terrorist attack in the heart of Moscow justifies more potentially repressive acts by the Putin regime.

"I think what a lot of people are worried about is that [Darya's killing] will be used - even if this was not the origins of it - as an excuse to go even harder against any internal opponents of the war," Brian Taylor, a political science professor at Syracuse University and an expert in Russian politics, told Vox.

Putin has already cracked down heavily on Russia's opposition, passing laws that impose up to 15-year jail terms for anyone who calls the invasion of Ukraine a "war" and virtually eradicating independent press in the country.

It's an open question as to how much further Putin could tighten the screws internally, but the swift response of pro-Kremlin commentators to Dugina's death certainly appears suspicious, according to some observers.

"The reaction … was immediate. It looks as if they were waiting for something like this to happen," Russian political analyst Yekaterina Shulman told the BBC.

Even so, the attack in Moscow may threaten the very bargain Putin has used to keep Russians from questioning his authority, especially as the war hits closer to home.

In recent weeks, Russian holidaymakers have been forced to flee attacks in occupied Crimea and there have been a series of mysterious explosions in southern Russia.

Now the bombing in the Odintsovo district has targeted "the very underbelly of Putinism".

"The night explosion scares very, very many real ideologues of war," Leonid Volkov, a close ally of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, wrote on social media.

After all, if the daughter of a high-profile figure can be killed in a fiery explosion while driving home after a music festival, is anyone safe?

- ABC