Who is Alexander Dugin? Was Putin's Ukraine invasion inspired by his philosophy?

The daughter of influential Russian political theorist was killed in a car bombing on the outskirts of Moscow, authorities said on Sunday.

Russian news agency TASS said that preliminary information indicated 29-year-old TV commentator Daria Dugina was killed by an explosive planted in the SUV she was driving on Saturday night.

Many think that the ultra-nationalist Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin may have been the intended target of the attack. Russian media reports cited witnesses saying that the SUV belonged to Dugin and that he had decided at the last minute to travel in another vehicle, reported AP.

Who is Alexander Dugin? Referred to as "Putin's brain", Alexander Dugin advocates Russia absorbing Ukraine. The philosopher, political theorist and journalist is a very influential person in Russia and has written many books.

• The 60-year-old has long advocated the unification of Russian-speaking and other territories in a vast new Russian empire.
• In his 1997 book, "The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia", Dugin was very critical of US influence in Eurasia and called for Russia to rebuild its own authority in the region and advocated breaking up the territory of other nations, reported Reuters.

Dugin's influence on Putin: While he has no direct ties with Kremlin or Valdimir Putin that has been reported, his anti-Western, ultranationalist philosophy has become the dominant political ideology in Russia and has helped shape President Putin's expansionist foreign policy, reported BBC.

"Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness," Dugin wrote in 1997. And, 25 years later, Putin repeated some of Dugin's views on Ukraine in his 4,000-word essay "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians", reported The Guardian.

His dreams of a 'great' Russia: Dugin, for a long time, has wanted and propagated the unification of Russian-speaking and other territories in a vast new Russian empire.

"Ukraine can become an integral, organic part of a new, eternal, true and profound Russia," he wrote on Tsargrad TV's website in May.

"Ukrainians must understand that we are inviting them to create this new, great power. As well as Belarusians, Kazakhs, Armenians, but also Azerbaijanis and Georgians, and all those who not only were and are with us, but also will be," Reuters reported him as writing for the Russian TV channel's website.

US sanctions: The US imposed sanctions on Dugin in 2015 for being "responsible for or complicit in actions or policies that threaten the peace, security, stability, or sovereignty or territorial integrity of Ukraine '', reported Reuters.

"Dugin controls Geopolitica, a website that serves as a platform for Russian ultranationalists to spread disinformation and propaganda targeting Western and other audiences," the US Treasury said.

Who was behind the attack? An unknown Russian group, the National Republican Army, claimed responsibility Sunday for the bombing, according to a former Russian lawmaker, Ilya Ponomarev, reported the The Kyiv Independent.

Denis Pushilin, President of the separatist Donetsk People's Republic, blamed the blast on "terrorists of the Ukrainian regime", but Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denied Ukrainian involvement, reported AP.

"We are not a criminal state, unlike Russia, and definitely not a terrorist state," Podolyak said.