Darya Dugin, daughter of Alexander Dugin, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin of Russia, has died in a bomb explosion on Saturday night.

According to Daily Mail UK, Dugin was ”blown to pieces” in an assassination attempt that was meant for her father. She was said to be returning from a festival when the vehicle she drove suddenly exploded on a road on the outskirts of Moscow.

Alexander, her father, was supposed to be in the same car with her but had decided to travel in a separate car.

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Alexander, 60, a former editor of Tsargrad TV Network, a pro-Putin Russian television station, is widely regarded as the Russian President’s brain. He is also believed to be one of the major architects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A footage from the scene of the bombing shows Darya’s Land Cruiser Prado engulfed in flames by the roadside.

Denish Pushilin, a Putin loyalist, accused Ukraine of masterminding the explosion.

“The terrorists of the Ukrainian regime, trying to eliminate Alexander Dugin, blew up his daughter… In a car. Blessed memory of Daria, she is a real Russian girl!” Pushilin wrote on Instagram.

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Despite not playing a formal role in Putin’s government, Alexander is regarded as the Russian president’s “guru advisor with heavy influence”.

Before her death, Dugin had been sanctioned by the US Treasury after she became the chief editor of the United World International (UWI), a website owned by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin and suspected of interfering in the 2016 election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.