A photo of Russian journalist Darya Dugina at her funeral in August in Moscow (AFP)

Ukraine's security service (SBU) orchestrated the assassination of Daria Dugina, The Washington Post reported on Monday, citing unnamed officials.

The report said that Ukrainian operatives installed components of a bomb that killed Dugina in a hidden compartment in a pet carrier, citing officials. On that note, the pet carrier was part of the luggage of the car that entered Russia a month before the assassination carrying a mother and her 12-year-old daughter, the Post said.

The report also explained that since 2015, the CIA has spent tens of millions of dollars to transform Ukraine’s special services into potent allies against Moscow.

The Post wrote that the CIA has provided Ukraine with advanced surveillance systems, trained recruits at sites in Ukraine and the United States, built new headquarters for departments in Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, and shared intelligence on a much greater scale that would have been unimaginable before 2014.

Ukraine’s affinity for lethal operations, however, has caused unease among US officials and complicated its cooperation with the CIA, The Post reported.

On that note, it is worth mentioning that over the past 20 months, the SBU and the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Directorate of Intelligence have carried out dozens of assassinations, including of war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky at a cafe in St. Petersburg, the report said, citing Ukrainian and Western officials.

Ukraine authorized assassination of Russia's Darya Dugina

During an interview with the New York Times, in October 2022, Podolyak said: “We have other targets on the territory of Ukraine... I mean collaborationists and representatives of the Russian command, who might have value for members of our special services working in this program, but certainly not Dugina.”

The Ukrainian government has covertly acknowledged assassinating Russian officials on Ukrainian soil while sabotaging Russian weapon factories and depots, as a senior Ukrainian military official who declined to be identified claimed that assassinations have taken place against accused Ukrainian collaborators and Russian officials in territories including against the head of the Kherson region, who was poisoned back in August and was evacuated for treatment.

US intel agencies, according to US officials, believe part of the Ukrainian government authorized the car bomb in Moscow back in August that killed Daria Dugina, daughter of prominent Russian nationalist Alexander Dugin.

Being reprimanded by the US

Ukraine continuously denied involvement in the assassination after it happened, and US officials are worried that these types of operations have little direct impact on the ground which could backfire, as they say that the US is angry with Ukraine’s lack of transparency regarding its plans, especially on Russian soil.

It is suspected by some US officials that it was her father who was the actual target of the operation adding that it was believed he was in the car, and not her.

At the time, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated that if the allegation of a Ukrainian connection to the death of journalist and political analyst Darya Dugina is confirmed by the appropriate authorities, Kiev is engaging in its policy of state terrorism.

"The Russian law enforcement authorities are investigating the death of Darya Dugina. If the Ukrainian trace is confirmed, and this version was voiced by DPR head Denis Pushilin, and it must be verified by the competent authorities, then we are talking about the policy of state terrorism implemented by the Kiev regime," Zakharova wrote on Telegram.

Days after the assassination, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that she was killed by Ukraine's special services, with an explosive device hidden beneath the car's floor on the driver's side. The FSB revealed that Ukrainian citizen Vovk Natalya was behind the murder.

"The crime was prepared and committed by the Ukrainian special services. The performer is a citizen of Ukraine Vovk Natalya ... born in 1979, who arrived in Russia on July 23, 2022, together with her daughter ... In order to organize the murder of D. Dugina and obtain information about her lifestyle, they rented an apartment in Moscow in the house where the deceased lived," the FSB said.