The Matter of Durya Dugina and Innocence.

I was reading the news report today about Darya Dugina, daughter of a prominent Putin ally, who was killed by a car bomb in Moscow yesterday. I feel the need to say a few words about it, and so that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll keep it short.

First of all, it must be obvious by now that I abhor violence except in certain circumstances such as genuine self-defence or the justifiable defence of the innocent. I’m not the sort to say ‘she deserved it’ and I have no intention of giving that impression. But let’s ask a couple of questions:

1. How many innocent Russian civilians have been killed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Is Darya Dugina the first?

2. How many innocent Ukrainian civilians have been killed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Have they stopped counting yet?

And then there’s the fact that Darya Dugina was a strongly pro-Putin journalist who made it her business to openly support Russian aggression. She had a right to her views, of course, and she had the right as a journalist to express them. But let’s not forget that journalists are among society’s foremost influencers, so they must accept a certain degree of responsibility for the effect they have on public opinion, in this case public support for the invasion of Ukraine. Does that not at least slightly dilute her right to the status of innocence, at least when compared with those truly innocent civilians killed by a rocket attack on a Ukrainian shopping mall?

I’m not gloating here, you understand, just offering what I consider to be a rational view of the matter. 

And that’s it.