A high-profile killing took place in Moscow last month — a killing with potentially massive implications, both for the war in Ukraine and for the stability of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government.

On Aug. 20, a car bombing in Moscow took the life of Darya Dugina. The 29-year-old Dugina was an ultranationalist activist. Earlier this year, she had been sanctioned by both the U.S. and U.K. governments for her role in spreading Kremlin propaganda. Dugina’s most distinguishing attribute, however, was that she was the daughter of Alexander Dugin, the far-right philosopher and “Eurasianist” ideologue whose views about Russian empire and the need for confrontation with the West have become popular within the Kremlin’s corridors of power. Indeed, it was Dugin who had articulated the concept of “Novorossiya” (New Russia) that served as part of the justification for Russia’s 2014 invasion and annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Dugin has been a prominent cheerleader for Putin’s Ukraine campaign — and for the subsequent expansion of the conflict to other territories that Moscow covets.