- Vladimir Egorov, 46, was a member of Putin’s ruling United Russia party
The body of pro-Putin regional politician Vladimir Egorov, 46, has been found after a suspected fall from a third-floor window.
A member of the ruling party United Russia, he was a prominent and wealthy politician in oil-rich Tobolsk in western Siberia.
The Tobolsk City Duma dropped to his death from the third-floor window of a home on Kedrovaya Street in Tobolsk in the Tyumen Oblast, Russian Telegram channel Baza, which has links to Russian security services, reported.
One source said there was ‘no visible sign of a criminal death on the [politician’s] body’. Pathologists are to examine the cause of death.
His corpse was found in the yard of his house, according to reports.
According to the 72 news outlet, Egorov may have suffered from heart problems.
‘One of the most likely reasons is heart problems,’ a source told the publication.
Heart issues are frequently given as the explanation of multiple untimely or suspicious deaths among prominent people in Russia since the start of the war against Ukraine.
How this related to falling around 30ft from a third-floor window is unclear.
The report said: ‘In the near future pathologists will conduct an autopsy to establish the true cause of Egorov’s death.’
News outlet Baza reported: ‘Police are now investigating what exactly caused his fall.’
A trained lawyer with business interests, he had earlier been forced to leave the city administration in 2016 after a corruption scandal for which he was ultimately not convicted.
He returned to politics and was the wealthiest local deputy in Tobolsk.
He leaves behind a wife and two children.
One video shows him meeting his son after his return from army conscription.
He is not the only high-ranking figure in Russia whose death from falling out of a window has aroused suspicions since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In June, the glamorous vice-president of a Russian bank reportedly plunged to her death after falling from the window of her Moscow apartment.
Kristina Baikova, 28, an executive at Loko-Bank, allegedly fell from her 11th floor apartment on the Khodynsky Boulevard in the early hours. She died instantly at the scene.
The bank executive was with a 34-year-old friend, thought to be named Andrei, at the time of the incident after inviting him over to her home for drink.
In February, a top Russian defence official was found dead after plunging 160ft from a tower block window.
Marina Yankina, 58, was discovered by a passerby at the entrance of a house on Zamshina Street in St Petersburg.
She is believed to have fallen from the 16th floor to her death.
Yankina was a key figure in the funding of Vladimir Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine as head of the financial support department of the Ministry of Defence for the Western Military District, which is closely involved in the dictator’s invasion.
The Russian Investigative Committee and the press service of the Western Military District ‘Fontanka’ both confirmed her death.
In December 2022, sausage multi-millionaire Pavel Antov, who had criticised Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, was found dead after a mysterious fall from a hotel in India.
Antov, from the main pro-Putin party United Russia, had been on a trip to celebrate his upcoming 66th birthday.
A male friend in his party had died ‘from a heart attack’ the previous week, and the wealthy politician perished two days later.
The married tycoon, an MP in the legislative assembly of the Vladimir region, was listed as Russia’s highest-earning elected official in 2019.
The Russian Consul General in Kolkata Alexei Idamkin told TASS he ‘fell’ out of a hotel window in Rayagada, Odisha state.
In June of that year, Antov criticised the war and air strikes on Kyiv as Russian ‘terror’ wounding Ukrainian civilians.
He highlighted a Russian missile strike and said: ‘A girl has been pulled out from under the rubble, the girl’s father appears to have died.
‘The mother is trying to be pulled out with a crane – she is trapped under a slab. To tell the truth, it is extremely difficult to call this anything other than terror.’
He evidently then swiftly came under intense pressure after which he withdrew the comment and made a grovelling apology.
He made an about-turn and claimed his post on social media had been ‘an unfortunate misunderstanding’ and a ‘technical error’.
He insisted he had ‘always supported the president’ and ‘sincerely’ backed the goals of Putin’s military operation – but local journalists strongly disputed this.
In September 2022, the chairman of a Russian oil company that criticised Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was found dead in suspicious circumstances after he plunged from a sixth floor window at a Moscow hospital.
Ravil Maganov, 67, chairman of Russian oil giant Lukoil, died on the spot after falling from a window on the sixth floor of the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow at around 7.30am local time.
Russian state media quickly said his death was a suicide but law enforcement sources said there was no suicide note and there were no CCTV cameras on the section of the building where Maganov fell.
Lukoil, of which Maganov was chairman, was one of the few major Russian companies to call for the end of fighting in Ukraine after Moscow invaded.
In a statement in the days after the invasion, the Lukoil board called for an ‘immediate’ end to the fighting, expressing its sympathy to those affected by the ‘tragedy’.
And seven months later, Maganov was found dead after falling from the hospital window.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
