In the wake of the car-bombing that killed the daughter of a top advocate for Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine, close allies and prominent cheerleaders for the Russian president's invasion suddenly fear the war has come home and their own lives are in peril.
With Russian investigators trying to pin the killing of Daria Dugina in an upscale neighborhood on Ukrainian operatives, Russian newscasters and propagandists are worried they may be next and are hiring their own private security, according to the Washington Post.
As the Post's Robyn Dixon and Mary Ilyushina wrote, "Denials and details aside, Dugina’s death rocked the Russian TV anchors, journalists and other commentators who serve up propaganda justifying President Vladimir Putin’s invasion as a war against Western global power and 'Nazis' in Ukraine. The killing immediately heightened a sense of vulnerability among Russia’s most elite and visible promoters of the war in Ukraine, who now realize that they might be targets and that the government is potentially unable to protect them."
The report notes that Russia's elites are now questioning whether Putin can protect them at home.
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"While it was once Putin’s enemies and critics who feared being shot or poisoned, now it is the Russian leader’s most prominent public allies who are insecure, relying on private bodyguards and other protective measures against unseen and unpredictable threats," the Post writes, and then quotes one pro-invasion journalist, Yury Kotenok, who admits that "by now it should be obvious to everyone that there are no safe places. Moscow is now a front-line city.”
Pro-Putin journalist Semyon Pegov agreed, stating, "Right now we should all realize with both mind and heart how serious this is for all of us."
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