Tobolsk City Duma/vk.com
Vladimir Egorov
CNN –
A politician from Russian President Vladimir Putin's party was found dead in a yard outside his home, local media reported on Thursday. This adds to the list of Russian elites who have died under unclear circumstances in recent months.
Vladimir Egorov, a city Duma deputy from the ruling United Russia party in Tobolsk, was said to be 46 years old at the time of his death, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported, citing the press service of the Investigative Committee for the Tyumen Region in Russia.
There were no “external signs of criminal death” on Egorov’s body, investigators told Kommersant. The committee “cannot confirm the information about the circumstances of the deputy's death,” it told Kommersant, as “an autopsy is still being carried out.”
Meanwhile, Russian state media TASS reported on Thursday that Yegorov was “found dead in Tobolsk,” also citing the regional committee. And the unofficial Telegram channel Baza – which has ties to Russian security services – said Yegorov's body was “discovered in the courtyard of his house on Kedrovaya Street” on Wednesday.
Kommersant and TASS reported that investigators are still determining the causes of Egorov's death, while the Tobolsk City Duma posted an obituary on its social media page on Thursday saying Egorov died “as a result of an accident.”
The Duma praised Egorov – its deputy chairman before his death – for the “comprehensive support to the participants of the special military operation and the families of servicemen fighting in Ukraine” and for his “active participation in the social and political life of the Duma.” City.”
He joins a list of prominent Russians who have died by suicide or in unexplained accidents in recent months and years, including several businessmen with ties to Russia's two largest energy companies.
That group included Ravil Maganov, the chief executive of Lukoil, Russia's second-largest oil and gas company, which had previously taken the unusual public stance of opposing Russia's war in Ukraine. According to the Russian state news agency TASS, Maganov died after falling from the window of a hospital in Moscow.
Russian sausage magnate and former lawmaker Pavel Antov, another member of the United Russia party who topped Forbes' 2018 ranking of Russia's 100 richest officials, died in India last December after falling from the third floor of his Indian hotel Police.
Months before his death, he had reiterated his support for Putin after denying posting an anti-war message on WhatsApp, blaming it on an “unfortunate misunderstanding and technical error.”
In May, Russian Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education Pyotr Kutscherenko died after falling ill on a plane with a Russian delegation returning from a business trip to Cuba. A journalist who said he spoke with Kutscherenko in the months before his death said Kutscherenko felt like a hostage of the Russian government and feared for his own safety.