Russian economist falls from window amid rising suspicious deaths

An 82-year-old economist, Valentina Bondarenko, has died after falling out of the window of her apartment, according to the Russian news agency Tass. "Newsweek" described her as "a top Russian economist." She is yet another prominent person in Russia who has "fallen out of a window" since the war in Ukraine began.

The tragedy reportedly occurred on Monday evening, with Russian media announcing her death on Tuesday. Bondarenko was a leading researcher at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, emphasized the American "Newsweek."

The Russian agency Tass added that the economist's fall "was not of a criminal nature." "She fell out of the window of her apartment, unfortunately, it was not possible to save her, the injuries she received were incompatible with life," said an anonymous source in an interview with the Russian news agency, as quoted by the Czech website novinky.cz.

Czech media remind us that Bondarenko had been working at the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1988 and was involved in researching the transformation of socio-economic systems.

Bondarenko is not the first to have died by "falling out of a window" since the Kremlin began the war in Ukraine. On Christmas 2022 in India, Russian politician and meat industry tycoon Pavel Antov was said to have fallen out of a window. In June of the same year, Antov had criticized Russian air raids on Ukraine, calling the missile attack on a residential block in Kyiv "terror."

A few months earlier, the vice president of Lukoil oil company, Ravil Maganov, lost his life by allegedly falling out of a sixth-floor window of the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow. Maganov had been a trusted associate of dictator Vladimir Putin for years. He had worked at Lukoil since 1993, where he later became the vice president of the oil extraction company. Since June 2020, he had been chairman of the board of directors. A few years ago, Putin honored him with the Order of Alexander Nevsky, awarded for merits and distinguished social contributions.

There have been more mysterious deaths among the Russian elite. At the end of January 2022, just before the war broke out, Leonid Shulman, who had been responsible for security at Gazprom Investholding for years, allegedly committed suicide. In a farewell letter, he stated that he took his own life due to the pain of a broken leg. He had reportedly suffered the injury after being beaten by unknown assailants.

Meanwhile, a day after the attack on Ukraine, in St. Petersburg, former Gazprom manager Alexander Tyulyakov died by suicide. A few days later, relatives found Mikhail Watford, a gas magnate of Ukrainian descent, who had reportedly hanged himself in the garage of his estate in the British town of Surrey. Also deceased were a former director and a former vice president of Gazprombank and a director of Lukoil.