Ukraine: six months since the bloody invasion

Today Ukraine is 31 years old as an independent country and ironically it is also just six months since the bloody invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops and I dare say that the world will never be the same again.

On Saturday 20 August, Darya Dugina, the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, one of the men closest to the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, the ideologue of the new strong, nationalist and supremacist Russia of the 21st century, died.

The world wonders who could have perpetrated such a crime, wondering whether Dugin was the target, considering that his daughter was returning from an event together but alone in her father's car.

The doubt will remain. Speculation about the authorship of the crime is widespread and even opens up a whole debate as to who has the espionage capability.

The Kremlin blames Kiev and President Volodymir Zelensky denies it. Russia disseminates images of a woman in the service of Ukrainian intelligence as being responsible for the crime. In fact, they even implicate Estonia, which is already a NATO territory, of participating in the crime.

In recent hours, the Baltic nation has received a cascade of threats from Russia because it insists that the alleged bomber fled through its territory.

Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu called the charges unfounded and said the "aggressive rhetoric" was a way of intensifying pressure on his country. In reality, Estonia is in the Kremlin's crosshairs because it denies visas to Russian tourists.

But who killed Dugina? Ukraine is waging a warlike invasion that in recent days has been moving towards an offensive in Crimea, a relevant part of its territory with an exit to the Black Sea that since 2014 declared its independence, together with Sevastopol, with Russia's help.

The Kremlin's interference has been so extreme that Putin inaugurated a bridge he ordered to be built in 2018, a 19-kilometre-long infrastructure connected to Krasnodar in Russia. Putin himself rode in a truck that he drove to travel the bridge from one end to the other.

It is now a target of Ukrainian military forces who, advised by Washington and London, are seeking to bring it down and shift part of the war to the beautiful Crimean port in an attempt to weaken Russian troops.

No peace for the wicked. That is the slogan of Kiev's refusal to resume peace talks with the Russians under the auspices of Turkey, which the UN has joined.

Advised by the United States, President Zelenski is showing a muscle that no one thought possible: he is a patriot and the Wagner Group has him in its sights. He has been the main target since 24 February when the Russian invasion began.

He has been saved by the suspicion of the US intelligence services. If there is one thing this war has shown, it is American power: the White House warned of Russia's intention to invade Ukraine as early as 4 December 2021, that is, almost three months before it did so.

This is an indisputable sign of the effectiveness of the US intelligence services, so effective with their powerful satellites and surveillance methods, which, to date, have helped to prevent the Ukrainian state from succumbing to a nuclear power. Zelenski is still alive thanks to them.

Who killed Dugina? There are many questions that could change the course of events. Ukraine's capacity is limited to resisting and trying to divert the conflict in the Donbas towards Crimea. Its aim is to weaken Russia; as the war drags on, it loses men and, above all, expensive weapons.

It is in the White House's interest not only to make Russia a pariah but also to help ensure that the severe sanctions end up provoking a domestic chaos of protests against Putin. The traditional familiar strategy and the CIA has a lot of operational capacity here.

But there is also Putin with his old KGB-style training distrustful of his surroundings. An attack like this allows him to warn and gauge the true support of his inner circle in case someone was thinking of betraying him in anger at the consequences of the sanctions.

I am leaning more towards something either orchestrated by Putin or by anti-Putin forces within... perhaps in the coming days we will have a clearer answer as positions on the chessboard move. Putin as Nero is capable of anything.