Prominent Putin supporter and TV Kuban manager found poisoned in Krasnodar home

The couple left behind a 15-year-old daughter and an adult son. Investigators discovered their bodies in a bedroom, where, according to reports from the station that Konowalowa managed, a plastic bag with remnants of a suspicious powder was found.

Those familiar with Konowalowa doubted she willingly took drugs. "No visible injuries were found during the examination of the bodies," said a spokesperson from the Russian Investigative Committee. An autopsy has been ordered.

TV Kuban is a subsidiary of the government-owned broadcasting giant, All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK), an essential part of Putin's propaganda machine. The station has extensive coverage of the Krasnodar region, situated across the Kerch Strait from the annexed Crimea. The deceased editor-in-chief was regarded as one of Kremlin's key propagandists.

The British newspaper, express.co.uk, reported that Konowalowa's death is the latest in an unsettling string of incidents befalling prominent Russians since the start of the war in Ukraine. Such mysterious deaths often involve individuals linked to the Russian media sector.

Just last month, in Moscow, authorities discovered the body of Anna Carewej, a 35-year-old deputy editor of Putin's preferred newspaper, "Komsomolskaya Pravda". Vladimir Sungorkin, the newspaper's previous editor-in-chief, died under unclear circumstances a year earlier.