Shortly after Russia’s FSB identified a supposed accomplice in the assassination of Darya Dugina on Monday, Russian state media zeroed in on social media posts where he allegedly billed himself as a “sex instructor” and “beer lover.”
Bohdan Tsyganenko is the second Ukrainian national accused by Russian officials in the Aug. 20 car-bombing of Dugina, the daughter of far-right ideologue Alexander Dugin. The FSB claimed to have cracked the case in less than two days, pinning the crime on a Mini Cooper-driving Ukrainian mother they say brought her 12-year-old daughter along with her. Ukrainian authorities have denied any responsibility over the car bomb attack.
“It has been established that the murder of Dugina, together with Vovk, was prepared in Moscow by another member of the Ukrainian sabotage and terrorist group,” the FSB said in a statement on Monday, according to Russian state media outlet TASS. Tsyganenko is “a citizen of Ukraine born in 1978, who arrived in Russia in transit through Estonia on July 30, 2022 and left the territory of Russia the day before the commission of undermining Dugina.”
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Now, Russian state media is apparently doing their best to dig up “incriminating” evidence on Tsyganenko in an attempt to bolster the FSB’s narrative.
RIA Novosti reported Monday that (gasp!) Tsyganenko apparently used a pseudonym on social media where he posted “many collages, including with the captions ‘Sex Instructor,’ ‘Beer lover,’ and ‘Take everything from Pepsi,’ (where the Pepsi bottle is used for the consumption of hashish.”
The Kremlin-friendly tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets went even further and declared him “sex crazed,” writing that his social media pages were full of “many sites and videos with an erotic slant, sometimes bordering on pornography.” Photos of Tsyganenko published by RIA also showed the alleged “member of a Ukrainian sabotage and terrorist group” posing in a pirate hat.
Russian state media has in recent days doubled down on accusations against those they deem culpable in the car bomb hit job, with some propagandists claiming that both Estonian and British intelligence were somehow involved in helping the perpetrators coordinate the attack.
“The terrorist attack that caused Darya’s death is a joint military operation by the three special services, I will name those countries: Ukraine, Estonia and Great Britain,” Igor Korotchenko, a military expert featured on the Russian state TV show 60 Minutes, said last week.
Some Moscow politicians have gone so far as to use the death of Dugina as justification for the use of nuclear weapons: “Nuclear weapons could be used as needed,” State Duma Deputy Andrey Gurulyov said last week, adding that “the time for peace is over.”
