Newspaper chief falls to death from window in ‘strange’ Russian incident

Russian police are investigating the death of the latest prominent figure to fall to his death from a window.

The secretive head of Pravda publishing house, Vyacheslav Leontyev, 87, plunged 70ft from his home in western Moscow. He was in charge of the famous Soviet newspaper Pravda – or Truth – the main organ of the ruling Communist Party, and continued in the role long after the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

Leontyev was seen as knowledgeable about the secret fortune of the party. The veteran publisher died on Saturday evening and police are probing whether it was an accident, suicide or foul play.

Exiled journalist Andrey Malgin posted on the “strange death”, saying: “The window falls continue….

“Leontyev, fell from a window. He was found near his home on Molodogvardeyskaya Street, where he lived.”

Suggesting he could have been secretly wealthy, Malgin – who knew him – wrote: “He gave the impression of a sort of underground millionaire….

“He knew a lot about the ‘Party’s money’ — the Pravda publishing house was the most profitable enterprise in the business empire of the CPSU [Communist Party of the Soviet Union] Central Committee.”

Unconfirmed reports said Leontyev had been having health problems.

Russia^[3] has suffered a spate of deaths of leading managers of major companies during and immediately before the war in Ukraine^[4].

Last month former St Petersburg transport boss Alexander Fedotov’s body was found outside the five-star Skypoint Luxe – former Sheraton – hotel at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo international airport.

He had been staying on a business trip in a room on a “high floor” in the hotel, according to reports.

A criminal investigation is underway with reports saying no suicide note was found.

He was linked to Vladimir Putin^[5]’s transport minister Roman Starovoit, 53, whose death in July – officially designated as suicide hours after Putin fired him – remains highly suspicious amid claims he had been “tortured” before being “murdered”.

Among dozens of deaths seen as suspicions are Lukoil tycoon Ravil Maganov, 67, who fell from a window of Moscow’s elite Central Clinical Hospital, also known as the Kremlin clinic, in September 2022.

He was replaced by Vladimir Nekrasov – who died aged 66 of “acute heart failure” in October 2023.

Both Maganov and Nekrasov had opposed Putin’s war.

The following month, Russian senator and war backer, Vladimir Lebedev, with close Lukoil links, died suddenly in an unexplained “terrible tragedy” aged 60.

In March, 2024, Lukoil vice-president Vitaly Robertus, 53, was found hanged in his office toilet.

Separately, Pavel Antov, 65, a Russian sausage tycoon and politician, fell from a hotel window in India in December 2022.

Marina Yankina, 58, a defence official in charge of war money, died in February 2023 after falling 160ft to her death in St Petersburg.

Former oil company vice president Mikhail Rogachev, 64, died after falling from his tenth-floor apartment in Moscow in October 2024.

He had been a senior executive at Yukos, an oil company dismembered by Putin and his cronies.

In July this year, Transneft vice-president Andrey Badalov, 62, fell to his death from the elite tower block where he lived on Moscow’s Rublevskoye Highway.

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