World
Most UK medical students struggle to buy essentials as NHS faces workforce crisis: Survey
Six in 10 medical students in the United Kingdom are forced to cut spending on food, clothing and heating because of a "broken" system of allowance assistance from the state, a survey found.
The study published Tuesday by the British Medical Association said 61.8 % of those polled were struggling to afford essentials, while 53.6% said they had to work during terms to pay their bills. Most of those forced to work said this adversely affected their studies.
The BMA study also revealed that students eligible for National Health Service bursary found that it covered just 30% of their expenses. Students see their income drop further in the final two years of their studies when they are on clinical placements in the NHS and have less time to work.
Read: Its largest lake is so dry, China digs deep to water crops
BMA medical students committee co-chair Omolara Akinawonnu called the UK’s student finance system "broken and in urgent need of reform." She said that students saddled with "astronomical" debts were questioning their future in the NHS, which is already short of 8,000 doctors in England alone.
"This is no way to train our future doctors. We have a mental health emergency in universities that is about to implode as inflation skyrockets and the cost-of-living spirals out of control," she warned.
The survey of 1,119 medical students across the UK also found that almost 1 in 25 students reported accessing food banks. The funding shortfall was disadvantageous to the poorest students and jeopardizing their future careers in the NHS.
Its largest lake is so dry, China digs deep to water crops
With China's biggest freshwater lake reduced to just 25% of its usual size by a severe drought, work crews are digging trenches to keep water flowing to one of the country's key rice-growing regions.
The dramatic decline of Poyang Lake in the landlocked southeastern province of Jiangxi had otherwise cut off irrigation channels to nearby farmlands. The crews, using excavators to dig trenches, only work after dark because of the extreme daytime heat, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
A severe heat wave is wreaking havoc across much of southern China. High temperatures have sparked mountain fires that have forced the evacuation of 1,500 people in the southwest, and factories have been ordered to cut production as hydroelectric plants reduce their output amid drought conditions. The extreme heat and drought have wilted crops and shrunk rivers including the giant Yangtze, disrupting cargo traffic.
Fed by China’s major rivers, Poyang Lake averages about 3,500 square kilometers (1,400 square miles) in high season, but has contracted to just 737 square kilometers (285 square miles) in the recent drought.
As determined by water level, the lake officially entered this year’s dry season Aug. 6, earlier than at any time since records began being taken in 1951. Hydrological surveys before then are incomplete, although it appears the lake may be at or around its lowest level in recent history.
Along with providing water for agriculture and other uses, the lake is a major stopover for migrating birds heading south for the winter.
Read: China and US spar over climate on Twitter
A wide swath of western and central China has seen days of temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in heat waves that have started earlier and lasted longer than usual.
The heat is likely connected to human-caused climate change, though scientists have yet to do to the complex calculations and computer simulations to say that for certain.
“The heat is certainly record-breaking, and certainly aggravated by human-caused climate change,” said Maarten van Aalst, director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre in the Netherlands. “Drought is always a bit more complex.”
The “truly mind-boggling temperatures roasting China” are connected to a stuck jet stream — the river of air that moves weather systems around the world — said Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts.
She said a an elongated area of relatively high atmospheric pressure parked over western Russia is responsible for both China’s and Europe’s heat waves this year. In China’s case, the high pressure is preventing cool air masses and precipitation from entering the area.
“When hot, dry conditions get stuck, the soil dries out and heats more readily, reinforcing the heat dome overhead even further,” Francis said.
In the hard-hit city of Chongqing, some shopping malls have been told to open only from 4 to 9 p.m. to conserve energy. Residents have been seeking respite in the cool of air raid shelters dating from World War II.
That reflects the situation in Europe and elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere, with high temperatures taking a toll on public health, food production and the environment.
Large section of smoldering Beirut port silos collapses
Another significant section of the devastated Beirut Port silos collapsed on Tuesday morning in a cloud of dust. No injuries were reported — the area had been long evacuated — but the collapse was another painful reminder of the horrific August 2020 explosion.
The collapse left the silos' southern part standing next to a pile of charred ruins. The northern block had already been slowly tipping over since the initial explosion two years ago but rapidly deteriorated after it caught fire over a month ago due to fermenting grains.
The 50 year old, 48 meter (157 feet) tall silos had withstood the force of the explosion on Aug. 4, 2020, effectively shielding the western part of Beirut from the blast that killed over 200 people, injured more than 6,000 and badly damaged entire neighborhoods.
Emmanuel Durand, a French civil engineer who volunteered for the government-commissioned team of experts, told The Associated Press that the speed of the tilt rapidly accelerated overnight on Monday, just hours before the collapse.
“There was a very sharp acceleration, which was expected,” Durand explained. “When this happens, you know it’s going to go.”
The country's caretaker environment minister, Nasser Yassin, told Lebanese TV that the government will now look into how to ensure the southern block remains standing. He urged residents near the port to wear masks, and said experts would conduct air quality tests.
In April, the Lebanese government decided to demolish the silos, but suspended the decision following protests from families of the blast’s victims and survivors. They contend that the silos may contain evidence useful for the judicial probe, and that it should stand as a memorial for the 2020 tragedy.
Read: Part of Beirut port silos, damaged in 2020 blast, collapses
In July, a fire broke out in the northern block of the silos due to the fermenting grains. Firefighters and Lebanese Army soldiers were unable to put it out and it smoldered for over a month. Officials had warned that the silo could collapse, but feared risking the lives of firefighters and soldiers who struggled to get too close to put out the blaze or drop containers of water from helicopters.
Survivors of the blast and residents near the port have told the AP that watching the fire from their homes and offices was like reliving the trauma from the port blast, which started with a fire in a warehouse near the silos that contained hundreds of tons of explosive ammonium nitrate, improperly stored there for years.
The environment and health ministries in late July issued instructions to residents living near the port to stay indoors in well-ventilated spaces.
Durand last month told the AP that the fire from the grains had sped up the speed of the tilt of the shredded silo and caused irreversible damage to its weak concrete foundation.
The structure has rapidly deteriorated ever since. In late July, part of the northern block collapsed for the first time. Days later on the second anniversary of the Beirut Port blast, roughly a fourth of the structure collapsed. On Sunday, the fire expanded to large sections of the silo.
On eve of Ukraine's national day, fears Russia will pounce
On the eve of Ukraine's independence day and the half-year mark of Russia's invasion of its neighbor, there was increasing unease in the country on Tuesday that Moscow could be centering on specific government and civilian targets during the holiday.
The United States reinforced those concerns when its embassy in Kyiv issued a security alert, saying it “has information that Russia is stepping up efforts to launch strikes against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and government facilities in the coming days.”
Over the weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy already sensed a threat coming when he said in his daily address that “we should be aware that this week Russia may try to do something particularly nasty, something particularly cruel.”
The warnings come on the heels of Russia's claim that Ukrainian intelligence was responsible for the car bombing that killed the daughter of a leading right-wing Russian political thinker over the weekend. Ukraine denied involvement.
Darya Dugina, a 29-year-old commentator with a nationalist Russian TV channel, died when a remotely controlled explosive device planted in her SUV blew up on Saturday night as she was driving on the outskirts of Moscow.
The sense of dread pervading the war centers in part on Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, at Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine, where continued shelling and fighting in the area has raised fears of a nuclear catastrophe.
Read:Six months on, Ukraine fights war, faces painful aftermath
U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres late Monday warned about the nuclear threat in general, particularly since Russia alluded to its massive nuclear arsenal early in the war.
Guterres demanded a halt to “nuclear saber-rattling” on Monday, saying the world is at a “maximum moment of danger” and all countries with nuclear weapons must make a commitment to “no first-use."
That didn't prevent shelling close to Zaporizhzhia early Tuesday. Regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko said Russian forces fired on nearby Marhanets and Nikopol on the right bank of the Dnieper River, continuing weeks of relentless overnight shelling.
Amid the death and destruction, there was one small point of light. All professional soccer was stopped in February, but a new league season starts Tuesday in Kyiv.
The Olympic Stadium will see the the opening-day meeting of Shakhtar Donetsk and Metalist 1925 from Kharkiv — teams from eastern cities that are fighting for their very existence.
No fans will be allowed in the 65,000-capacity downtown stadium for the kickoff at 1 p.m. local time, and the players must be rushed to bomb shelters if air-raid sirens sound.
"The teams, the players will be proud of this event,” Shakhtar captain Taras Stepanenko said Monday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
Six months on, Ukraine fights war, faces painful aftermath
Danyk Rak enjoys riding his bike, playing soccer and quiet moments with the family’s short-legged dog and two white cats, Pushuna and Lizun.
But at age 12, his childhood has been abruptly cut short. His family's home was destroyed and his mother seriously wounded as Russian forces bombarded Kyiv’s suburbs and surrounding towns in a failed effort to seize the capital.
Six months after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, and with no end to the conflict in sight, The Associated Press revisited Danyk as well as a police officer and an Orthodox priest whose lives have been upended by war.
“I WANT TO BE AN AIR FORCE PILOT”
Tears come to Danyk’s eyes as his mother, Luda, recalls being pulled from the rubble, covered in blood, after shrapnel tore through her body and smashed her right foot.
Twenty-two weeks after she was wounded, she’s still waiting to have her foot amputated and to be fitted with a prosthetic. She keeps the piece of shrapnel surgeons removed during one of her many operations.
Danyk lives with his mother and grandmother in a house near Chernihiv, a town 140 kilometers (nearly 90 miles) north of Kyiv, where a piece of tarp covers the broken bedroom windows. He sells milk from the family's cow that grazes in the nearby fields. A handwritten sign wrapped in clear plastic on the front gate reads: “Please buy milk to help my mother who is injured."
“My mother needs surgery and that’s why I have to help her. I have to help my grandmother too because she has heart problems,” Danyk said.
Before schools reopen on Sept. 1, Danyk and his grandmother have been joining volunteers several days a week clearing the debris from buildings damaged and destroyed in the Russian bombardment outside Chernihiv. On the way, he stops at his old house, most of it smashed to the foundations.
“This was my bedroom,” he says, standing next to scorched mattress springs that protrude from the rubble of bricks and plaster.
Polite and soft spoken, Danyk says his father and stepfather are both fighting in the Ukrainian army.
“My father is a soldier, my uncles are soldiers and my grandfather was a soldier, too. My stepfather is a soldier and I will be a soldier,” he says with a look of determination. “I want to be an air force pilot.”
“THIS BRIDGE WAS THE ROAD FROM HELL”
Before the Russian withdrawal from Kyiv and surrounding areas on April 2, suburbs and towns near the city’s airport were pounded by rockets, artillery fire and aerial bombardment in an effort to break the Ukrainian defenses.
Entire city blocks of apartments were blackened by the shelling in Irpin, just 20 kilometers (12 miles) northwest of the capital, along a route where police Lt. Ruslan Huseinov patrolled daily.
Read:Ukraine soccer league defies Russian war to begin season
Some of the most dramatic scenes from the early stages of the war were of the evacuation from Irpin underneath a destroyed highway bridge, where thousands escaped the relentless attacks.
Huseinov was there for 16 days, organizing crossings where the elderly were carried along muddy pathways in wheelbarrows.
Reconstruction work has begun on the bridge, where mangled concrete and iron bars hang over the river. Clothing and shoes from those who fled can still be seen tangled in the debris.
“This bridge was the road from hell,” says Huseinov, 34, standing next to an overturned white van still lodged into a slab of smashed concrete.
“We got people out of (Irpin) because conditions were terrible — with bombing and shelling,” he said. “People were really scared because many lost their children, members of their family, their brothers and sisters.”
Crosses made from construction wood are still nailed to the railings of the bridge to honor those lost and the effort to save civilians.
“The whole world witnessed our solidarity,” says Huseinov, who grew up in Germany and says he would never again take the good things in life for granted.
“In my mind, everything has changed: My values in life,” he said. “Now I understand what we have to lose.”
“BEFORE THE WAR, IT WAS ANOTHER LIFE”
The floor of the Church of Andrew the Apostle has been re-tiled and bullet holes in the walls plastered over and repainted — but the horror of what happened in March lies only a few yards away.
The largest mass grave in Bucha — a town outside Kyiv that has become synonymous with the brutality of the Russian attack — is behind the church.
“This grave contained 116 people, including 30 women, and two children,” said Father Andriy, who has conducted multiple burial services for civilians found shot dead or killed by shelling, some still only identified as a number while the effort to name all of Bucha’s victims continues.
Many of the bodies were found before the Russians pulled out of the Kyiv region, Father Andriy said.
“We couldn’t bury people in the cemetery because it’s on the outskirts of the city. They left people, dead people, lying in the street. Dead people were found still in their cars. They were trying to leave but the Russians shelled them,” said Father Andriy, wearing a large cross around his neck and a dark purple cassock.
“That situation lasted two weeks, and the local authorities began coming up with solutions (to help) relatives and loved ones. It was bad weather and wild animals were discovering the bodies. So something had to be done.”
He decided to carry out burial services in the church yard, many next to where the bodies had been discovered.
The experience , he said, has left people in the town badly shaken.
“I think that, neither myself or anyone who lives in Ukraine, who witnessed the war, can understand why this happened," he said.
“Before the war, it was another life.”
“For now we are surviving on adrenaline,” he said. "But I’m worried that the aftermath will last decades. It will be hard to get past this and turn the page. Saying the word ‘forgive’ isn’t difficult. But to say it from your heart — for now , that’s not possible.”
Pakistan's government steps up pressure on ex-PM Imran Khan
The Pakistani government on Tuesday stepped up pressure on former Prime Minister Imran Khan who has been holding mass rallies, seeking to return to office, with an Islamabad court poised to launch contempt proceedings over his verbal threats to a judge at a weekend rally.
Meanwhile, police raided the apartment of Khan's close aide Shahbaz Gill overnight in the Pakistani capital, and took him away in handcuffs for interrogation.
The developments came two days after authorities filed terrorism charges against Khan, escalating political tensions in the country. In a speech at a rally on Saturday, Khan vowed to sue police officers and a female judge, Zeba Chaudhry, and alleged that Gill had been tortured after his initial arrest earlier this month.
Khan, who came into power in 2018 and was ousted in April in a no-confidence vote in Parliament, could be disqualified for life from politics if convicted of insulting Chaudhry. The terrorism charge against him could carry anything from several months to 14 years in prison, the equivalent of a life sentence.
Gill has been charged with treason for his recent anti-army remarks during a show on the private ARY TV in which he urged soldiers and officers to disobey “illegal" orders from military leaders. The treason charge against Gill carries the death penalty under a sedition act that stems from a British colonial-era law. ARY TV remains off-air in Pakistan following that broadcast.
Read: Police file terrorism charges against Pakistan's Imran Khan
Since his ouster, Khan has alleged — without providing evidence — that Pakistan's powerful military took part in a U.S. plot to oust him. Washington, the Pakistani military and the government of Khan's successor, Shahbaz Sharif, have all denied the allegation.
The latest trouble for Khan started at Saturday's rally when he criticized Chaudhry, saying: “You also get ready for it, we will also take action against you. All of you must be ashamed.”
Sharif's government is unhappy with Khan over his threats and although courts usually pardon offenders if they apologize, some politicians have been convicted in the past for disobeying or insulting judges.
It was unclear whether Khan would attend Tuesday's court hearing or send his lawyer.
Ahsan Bhoon, a lawyer who heads the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan, welcomed the proceedings against Khan, saying no one should be allowed to insult a judge or damage the reputation of the judiciary.
Khan came to power promising to break the pattern of family rule in Pakistan. His opponents contend he was elected with help from the powerful military, which has ruled the country for half of its 75-year history.
Since his ouster, Khan has also demanded early elections and vowed to oust Sharif's government through “pressure from the people."
Malaysia top court upholds ex-PM Najib's graft conviction
Former Prime Minister Najib Razak sought Tuesday to remove Malaysia's top judge from the final appeal against his 12-year prison sentence in a graft case linked to the massive looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad state fund, saying she may not be impartial.
In a new twist, Najib said in his application that the husband of Chief Justice Maimun Tuan Mat, who is leading a five-member Federal Court bench, had been critical about his leadership over the 1MDB scandal.
In his affidavit read out in court his lawyer, Najib said Zamani Ibrahim had, in a Facebook post right after Najib's ouster in 2018 general elections, concluded that Najib “had siphoned sovereign government funds" into his personal account. Najib said this was “highly disturbing" as it was likely that Zamani influenced Maimun's view on his alleged culpability.
As such, the court's findings may be seen as “tainted with bias, and the public perception of the independence of the judiciary will be in doubt," Najib said in his application.
Prosecutors accused Najib of making the application in bad faith to delay the conclusion of his final appeal.
Also read: Malaysia's ruling party wins big again in state polls
Najib, 69, would become Malaysia’s first former prime minister to be imprisoned if his appeal fails. He has maintained he is innocent and has been out on bail pending his appeals.
His latest move came after the Federal Court last week rebuffed several attempts by Najib to delay the hearing. It rejected his attempt to introduce new evidence that could spark a retrial on allegations of bias by the high court judge who sentenced him in 2020.
The court also refused to postpone the hearing for Najib’s newly appointed lawyers to prepare for the case. Najib’s new lead counsel, Hisyam Teh Poh Teik, then asked to withdraw himself as he wasn’t given time to prepare but the court denied his request.
Hisyam then said he would not make any new submissions in the appeal. Najib has protested that his right to a fair hearing was at stake as he was left with no effective counsel or proper representation in such a case.
The hearing then began Thursday. The prosecution ended their arguments Friday, and his defense is due to start Tuesday.
But at the start of the hearing, Hisyam told the Federal Court the defense has made an application to recuse Maimun and for a new panel to hear the appeal. He said there was a real danger of bias on Maimun's part that would cause her not to be objective and impartial.
Maimun, Malaysia's first female chief justice appointed in 2019, has come under attack on social media from Najib’s supporters. Police arrested a man over the weekend in connection with death threats made against Maimun. Hundreds of Najib's supporters amassed outside the court in a show of support.
Also read: Manpower export to Malaysia resumes after four-year gap
1MDB was a development fund Najib set up shortly after taking power in 2009. Investigators allege at least $4.5 billion was stolen from the fund and laundered by Najib’s associates. Najib was found guilty of abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering for illegally receiving $9.4 million from SRC International, a former unit of 1MDB.
The 1MDB scandal sparked investigations in the U.S. and several other countries and caused the downfall of Najib’s government in 2018 elections. Najib faces a total of 42 charges in five separate trials linked to 1MDB, and his wife is also on trial on corruption charges.
Still, Najib remains politically influential. His United Malays National Organization leads the current government after defections of lawmakers caused the collapse of the reformist government that won the 2018 polls.
Atlanta police: 2 killed, 1 shot in Midtown neighborhood
A woman shot and killed two people and wounded a third Monday at two different locations in Atlanta's Midtown neighborhood and was later taken into custody at the city's airport, police said.
Atlanta police said they did not immediately know what prompted the attack, but they believe the victims were targeted. The suspect's name was not released.
“We do not believe these were random acts of violence," interim police chief Darrin Schierbaum told a news conference.
Also read: 1 dead, 5 wounded in shooting in NE Washington
Officers responded to a report of a shooting around 1:45 p.m. and found two victims at the first building. One of the victims died, and the other was taken to a hospital, Atlanta police said.
While there, police received another report of a shooting at a second building less than a mile (1.6 km) away. That victim was also taken to the hospital and later died. Atlanta police said they are investigating how the two sites are connected.
Law enforcement officers from multiple agencies descended on the Midtown area, telling residents to stay inside as they searched the area. Atlanta police said an “extensive camera network” helped them track the suspect and she was eventually located at the Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Also read: 2 dead after all-night shooting rampage in Vancouver, Canada
Mayor Andre Dickens said the woman was arrested before entering a restricted area and that the “security of the airport was never compromised."
Ukraine soccer league defies Russian war to begin season
Under threat of Russian attacks in a war that stopped all soccer in Ukraine in February, a new league season starts Tuesday in Kyiv with the goal of restoring some sense of normal life.
The elegant Olympic Stadium has staged the biggest European soccer games in the past decade though none as poignant as the opening-day meeting of Shakhtar Donetsk and Metalist 1925 from Kharkiv — teams from eastern cities that are fighting for their very existence.
No fans will be allowed in the 65,000-capacity downtown stadium for the 1 p.m. local time kickoff and the players must be rushed to bomb shelters if air-raid sirens sound.
“We have rules in case of an alarm and we should go to be underground,” Shakhtar captain Taras Stepanenko said Monday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “But I think the teams, the players will be proud of this event.”
“We are ready, we are strong and I think we will show to all the world Ukrainian life and will to win,” the national-team veteran said.
Also read: Russia blames Ukraine for nationalist's car bombing death
The Ukrainian Premier League returns with the blessing of the nation’s leaders and in a week heavy with meaning.
Tuesday is Ukraine’s national flag day and Wednesday — Aug. 24 — is the celebration of independence from control by Moscow that the former Soviet Union republic declared in 1991.
“I spoke with our president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, about how important football is to distract,” Ukraine soccer federation president Andriy Pavelko told the AP in June about the commitment to restart. “We spoke about how it would be possible that football could help us to think about the future.”
No competitive soccer has been played in Ukraine since mid-December when the league paused for a scheduled midwinter break. Games were due to resume on Feb. 25, until the Russian military invasion started one day earlier.
The 16-team league restarts without Desna Chernihiv and Mariupol, teams from cities that have suffered brutal destruction.
All games will be played in and around Kyiv and further west and will be shown domestically, abroad and on YouTube in a deal with broadcaster Setanta agreed last week. The total value of $16.2 million over three years is less than some elite English Premier League players will earn this season.
The concept of home-field advantage may have gone for most teams though simply playing on Ukrainian soil — other games Tuesday are in Kyiv, Uzhhorod and Kovalivka — is remarkable.
Also read: Ukraine: 9,000 of its troops killed since Russia began war
Ukrainian clubs fulfilling their games in UEFA's European competitions in recent weeks played in neighboring Poland and Slovakia, or Sweden, to ensure the safety of opponents like Benfica and Fenerbahçe.
Shakhtar, which was top of the domestic standings when last season was formally abandoned, will host opponents at Legia Warsaw’s stadium when the Champions League group stage starts Sept. 6. The groups are drawn Thursday.
Just 10 months ago, Stepanenko and Shakhtar faced eventual title winner Real Madrid in a Champions League game at the Olympic Stadium — the same field where the storied Spanish team won the final in 2018.
Last season, Shakhtar could field the core of Brazilian players it became famous for, funded by billionaire businessman Rinat Akhmetov who also owns the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol.
Those star players have now left Ukraine and Shakhtar will rely more on young, homegrown talent, just like its traditional rival Dynamo Kyiv, which starts Sunday against Dnipro-1.
“Of course, it’s a new team,” Stepanenko acknowledged, adding: “We feel confident because we play for our country and for our people.”
Russia blames Ukraine for nationalist's car bombing death
Moving quickly to assign blame, Russia on Monday declared Ukrainian intelligence responsible for the brazen car bombing that killed the daughter of a leading right-wing Russian political thinker over the weekend. Ukraine denied involvement.
Darya Dugina, a 29-year-old commentator with a nationalist Russian TV channel, died when a remotely controlled explosive device planted in her SUV blew up on Saturday night as she was driving on the outskirts of Moscow, ripping the vehicle apart and killing her on the spot, authorities said.
Her father, Alexander Dugin, a philosopher, writer and political theorist who ardently supports Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to send troops into Ukraine, was widely believed to be the intended target. Russian media quoted witnesses as saying that the SUV belonged to Dugin and that he had decided at the last minute to travel in another vehicle.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main successor to the KGB, said Dugina's killing was “prepared and perpetrated by the Ukrainian special services.”
The FSB said a Ukrainian citizen, Natalya Vovk, carried out the killing and then fled to Estonia.
Also read: Daughter of 'Putin's brain' ideologist killed in car blast
In Estonia, the prosecutor general's office said in a statement carried by the Baltic News Services that it “has not received any requests or inquiries from the Russian authorities on this topic.”
The FSB said Vovk arrived in Russia in July with her 12-year-old daughter and rented an apartment in the building where Dugina lived in order to shadow her. It said that Vovk and her daughter were at a nationalist festival that Dugin and his daughter attended just before the killing.
The agency released video of the suspect from surveillance cameras at the border crossings and at the entrance to the Moscow apartment building.
The FSB said Vovk used a license plate for Ukraine's Russian-backed separatist Donetsk region to enter Russia and a Kazakhstan plate in Moscow before switching to a Ukrainian one to cross into Estonia.
Ukraine’s presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak denied any Ukrainian involvement in the bombing. In a tweet, he dismissed the FSB claims as fiction, casting them as part of infighting between Russian security agencies.
In a letter extending condolences to Dugin and his wife, Putin denounced the “cruel and treacherous” killing and added that Dugina “honestly served people and the Fatherland, proving what it means to be a patriot of Russia with her deeds.” He posthumously awarded Dugina the Order of Courage, one of Russia's highest medals.
Also read: Putin extends fast-track Russian citizenship to all Ukraine
Russian Foreign Minisry spokeswoman Maria Zakharov said Dugina’s killing reflected Kyiv’s reliance on “terrorism as an instrument of its criminal ideology.”
In a statement, Dugin described his daughter as a “rising star" who was “treacherously killed by enemies of Russia.”
“Our hearts are longing not just for revenge and retaliation. It would be too petty, not in Russia style,” Dugin wrote. “We need only victory.”
The car bombing, unusual for Moscow since the gang wars of the turbulent 1990s, triggered calls from Russian nationalists to respond by ramping up strikes on Ukraine.
Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst, argued that the perpetrators of Dugina’s killing might have hoped to encourage a split between those in the Russian elite who advocate a political compromise to end the hostilities in Ukraine and proponents of even tougher military action.
Dugin, dubbed “Putin's brain” and “Putin's Rasputin” by some in the West, has been a prominent proponent of the “Russian world” concept, a spiritual and political ideology that emphasizes traditional values, the restoration of Russia’s global influence and the unity of all ethnic Russians throughout the world.
Dugin helped popularize the “Novorossiya,” or “New Russia” concept that Russia used to justify the 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its support of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. He has urged the Kremlin to step up its operations in Ukraine.
Dugin has also promoted authoritarian leadership in Russia and spoken with disdain of liberal Western values. He has been slapped with U.S. and European Union sanctions.
His daughter expressed similar views and had appeared as a commentator on the TV channel Tsargrad, where Dugin had served as chief editor.
Dugina herself was sanctioned by the U.S. in March for her work as chief editor of United World International, a website that Washington has described as a source of disinformation.
In an appearance on Russian television last week, Dugina called America “a zombie society” where people oppose Russia but cannot find it on a map.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Monday that Washington “unequivocally” condemns the targeting of civilians.
"We condemn the targeting of civilians, whether that’s in Kiev, whether that’s in Bucha, whether that’s in Kharkiv, whether that’s in Kramatorsk, whether that’s in Mariupol, or whether that’s in Moscow. That principle applies around the world,” Price said.