This morning in Moscow at a TV station there was a funeral service for a young woman named Darya Duginam.

She was driving on a Saturday night from a festival that she attended with her father, Alexander Dugin,

who is this prominent idealog and mystic philosopher, proponent of Russian expansion,

and her car exploded while she was driving on a highway in a really elite neighborhood, killing her in the spot.

Mary Luciana is a reporter who covers Russia for the post.

Russian officials pretty much immediately after this attack said it was done by Ukrainian special services

because both Alexander Dugin and his daughter, Darya, were really staunch proponents of this war

and allies of Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine.

And they are credited at least partially with creating this ideology that sees Ukraine as part of Russia and denies it independence.

And it is seen as an escalation to this conflict because there are a lot of calls now to retaliate and get vengeance and avenge her death.

And that is why there is a lot of concern that this could be a step towards this escalation that Russian forces may attack some western cities in Ukraine.

From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Martin Powers. It's Tuesday, August 23rd.

Today, why this car bombing in Moscow has become a flashpoint in the war in Ukraine and what it could signal is coming next.

So, Mary, what do we know about why this happened and who is responsible for it?

So, so far there are several competing theories. Russian officials immediately after the attack blamed Ukraine for this, saying that it's the work of Ukraine special services.

And then on Monday, Russia's internal intelligence service came out with an official assessment saying, yes, we believe this was Ukraine.

But that theory is very much debated because Dugin and his daughter are a little bit odd targets for the Ukrainians to even think about because they are intellectuals, philosophers, they're known in the tight circle of people.

But they don't necessarily influence any military decisions. And what other theories are going on is that it was possibly an internal false flag attack, but for what particular reason that was done, we don't know yet.

And the speculation is it was either done by the sort of hawkish groups within the special services to push the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin to be harsher and take a harsher stand in Ukraine and attack more central cities like Kiev or the opposite that Dugin's idea is and they sort of stance against Ukraine as crossing a lot of lines.

And it is a sign for that camp that hawkish camp to dial it back.

So let's back up for a second. Tell me who is Daria Dugina and why might she have been targeted for this attack?

She is also a political commentator, philosopher, and sort of aspiring intellectual. She ran a website called United World International, which the United States says is sort of disinformation website that is spreading a lot of

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