Vladimir Nikolayevich Sungorkin, 68, editor-in-chief of the major state newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, died “suddenly” after appearing to “suffocate”, according to the paper he ran. The Kremlin confirmed the death on Wednesday, calling his death “a great loss for Russian journalism”.

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Sungorkin was in Primorye, in Russia’s Far East, gathering material for an upcoming book and accompanied by his colleague Leonid Zakharov, when he died. “It happened completely out of the blue, nothing foreshadowed,” Zakharov wrote of the incident on Wednesday. “We were in the village of Roshchino. We were driving. We were already on our way to Khabarovsk. We were planning to get there this afternoon and from there to Moscow. Everything was good.” Story continues below ad Zakharov says Sungorkin suggested they take a break and “find a nice place somewhere … for lunch” shortly before they went into medical trouble.

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“Three minutes later, Vladimir Nikolayevich began to suffocate. We took him out into the fresh air. He was already unconscious,” Zakharov wrote. “The doctor who did the initial examination said that… apparently, it was a stroke. But that’s the initial conclusion.” Komsomolskaya Pravda was founded in 1925 as the official voice of the Central Committee of Komsomol, the communist youth union. It is a pro-Kremlin publication that has been described as the favorite newspaper of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Sungorkin had worked as the paper’s editor-in-chief and CEO since 1997. He was sanctioned by the European Commission in April after Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine. Trending Stories

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Sungorkin’s death comes just four days after another Russian elite, Ivan Pechorin, an energy executive, died under mysterious circumstances after falling overboard from a speedboat on Saturday night. Before these two deaths this week, several other Russian oligarchs had died suspiciously this year alone: Story continues below ad

Ravil Maganov, chairman of the board of Russia’s largest private oil company Lukoil, died after falling from a sixth-floor window of a hospital. Lukoil was one of the few Russian companies to call for an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Alexander Subbotin, a former top manager of Lukoil, was found dead in the basement of a shaman’s house after allegedly being treated for a hangover with toad venom. Sergey Protosenya, a former executive of Novatek, Russia’s largest independent natural gas producer, was found hanged outside a Spanish villa along with the bodies of his wife and 18-year-old daughter. The deaths appeared to be a murder-suicide. Vladislav Avayev, former vice president of Gazprombank, Russia’s third largest bank, was found dead in his Moscow apartment along with the bodies of his wife and 13-year-old daughter. The deaths also appeared to be murder-suicides. Avayev and his family were found the day before Protosenya and his family died. Vasily Melnikov, owner of Medstom, a company that imports medical equipment into Russia, and his family were all found dead in their luxury apartment in Nizhny Novgorod. Melnikov, his wife and their 10-year-old and four-year-old sons had been stabbed to death and the murder weapons were found at the crime scene. Investigators again concluded that the deaths were the result of a murder-suicide. Mikhail Watford, a Ukrainian-born oligarch who made his millions as an oil and gas tycoon, was found hanged in the garage of his Surrey home, Watford’s wife and children, who were at home at the time, were unharmed . Watford changed his surname from Tolstoseya after moving to the UK in the early 2000s. Alexander Tyulyakov, deputy general director of the Finance Ministry of Gazprom, the world’s largest publicly traded natural gas company, was found hanged in the garage of his country house. A note was found with his body leading investigators to the conclusion that Tyulyakov died by suicide. Leonid Shulman, a top Gazprom executive, was found dead in the bathroom of his holiday home next to an apparent suicide note in the same neighborhood where Tyulyakov would die a month later.

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