Russia says Ukraine's involvement in 'terrorist activities' not coincidence

MOSCOW

Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Monday said Ukraine's involvement in "terrorist activities" is not a coincidence after a report by Russian authorities held Kyiv responsible for the murder of Russian journalist Darya Dugina.

"The West should understand that the involvement of the Kyiv regime in terrorist activities is not an accident or an isolated example. It is not even a behavioral norm. Everything is much more serious. This is a nationalist mentality combined with terrorism as a tool for the implementation of criminal ideology," Maria Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel.

Zakharova added that "all citizens of countries whose governments sign checks to (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy" should know "to what kind of regime" the arms shipments are sent for.

Earlier, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) held Ukrainian authorities responsible for killing Dugina, a 29-year-old Russian journalist.

According to the FSB, a Ukrainian national Natalya Vovk arrived in Russia to commit the crime and after executing the task left the country.

Dugina, who was killed in a car explosion on the outskirts of Moscow late Saturday, was the daughter of Russian sociologist and philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, who heads the International Eurasian Movement, a political movement which opposes American values like liberalism and capitalism.

Dugin was included in the list of "100 Global Thinkers of the Modern World" by Foreign Policy magazine in 2014. He is also on the US and EU sanctions lists because of his open support to Russian President Vladimir Putin's policy.