There is an odd tendency for enemies and rivals of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and sometimes also his allies, to suddenly die in mysterious and unexpected ways.
That appears to have happened once again on Wednesday when a pro-Putin regional politician in Siberia, Vladimir Egorov, 46, reportedly fell to his death from the third floor of his home in Tobolsk, according to Fox News.
Falling multiple stories from tall buildings to one's demise, interestingly enough, appears to be a rather frequent form of such suspicious deaths involving Russians with connections, both good and bad, to President Putin.
The U.K.'s Independent reported that local media in Russia claimed that the body of Egorov was found in the courtyard of his home and that it was believed that he had fallen from a third-story window.
Russian state-run media outlet TASS, citing a local investigative committee, stated, "A body was discovered, the fact of death was confirmed, the investigator is establishing all the circumstances."
That local committee further asserted that there was no evidence of "external signs of criminal death" on the victim's body but that they "could not confirm the information about the circumstances of the deputy’s death" until an autopsy was completed.
However, an obituary published by the local government, for which Egorov served as deputy chairman, said that the politician had perished "as a result of an accident" and went on to herald his "comprehensive support to the participants of the Special Military Operation and the families of military personnel" engaged in the war in Ukraine.
According to the New York Post, at least one Russian media outlet reported on the possibility that Egorov suffered from unspecified "heart problems" that might have played a role in his sudden death from falling out of a window of his home.
That said, the Post noted that "heart problems" are often cited as an explanation for the mysterious and unexpected deaths of prominent Russian figures.
The outlet further reported that Egorov, who left behind a wife and two children, had previously been forced out of the local government in 2016 amid allegations of corruption for which he was never charged but had returned to office in recent years after accumulating substantial wealth through the region's lucrative oil and gas industry.
As for the claim that Egorov fell to his death from the third floor of his home, Fox News observed that several other prominent Russians have met similar fates within the past two years.
In June, Russian bank Vice President Kristina Baikova, 28, allegedly fell to her death from her 11th-floor apartment in Moscow, while in February, top Russian military officer Marina Yankina was reported to have fallen to her death from 16 stories up in a St. Petersburg building.
It was also pointed out that Ravil Maganov, the chairman of Russia's Lukoil energy company, was said to have died in September last year after falling from a sixth-story window in a hospital in Moscow.
In an interesting twist, the Post observed that both Maganov and Yankina, who were both ostensible allies of President Putin, were reported to have been suffering from "heart problems" when they plummeted to their separate deaths.
