A high-ranking Russian official, alleged to have had close financial ties to Vladimir Putin, was found dead on Tuesday evening.
Konstantin Zavizenov’s body was found by his son at a country house in the Istra district of Moscow on Tuesday evening, according to state-owned news agency RIA Novosti. Law enforcement agencies told the outlet that the death was preliminarily ruled a suicide, but some have cast doubt on this account.
Zavizenov, 50, had been on a drinking binge for “a week and a half” prior to his death, according to the largely pro-Kremlin news website Lenta. His son found a note and alcohol on a table in the house, before hearing a gunshot in another room of the house. Lenta also reported that Zavizenov’s wife had recently caught him in an extramarital affair, and had filed for divorce.
The news of his death was shared by Ukrainian-born race car driver and political commentator Igor Sushko, who expressed skepticism over claims of Zavizenov’s suicide.
“Konstantin Zavisenov, former Minister of Fuel, Energy & Coal Industry for occupied ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’ in Ukraine assassinated in Moscow with a gunshot to the head,” Sushko wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “He had just one degree of separation from Putin himself through the Kovalchuk mafia family.
According to Russian Telegram channel Cheka-OGPU—an underground news source for information on Russian political figures—from 2010 to 2016 Zavizenov served as director or risk management at Inter RAO, a Moscow-headquartered energy holding company.
At the time of Zavizenov’s appointment, the firm, one of the country’s largest energy companies, was headed by Boris Kovalchuk, son of Yuri Kovalchuk.
Kovalchuk is a Russian billionaire business owner and oligarch, described by Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar, who has criticized the Russian president, as “the de facto second man in Russia,” and by American government-funded Radio Liberty as “Putin’s personal banker.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during the State Council’s Presidium at the Kremlin’s Senate Palace on September 25, 2024, in Moscow, Russia. Putin holds a meeting with officials and ministers on export development.
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Zavizenov formerly served as Minister of Fuel, Energy and Coal Industry for the Luhansk People’s Republic, an internationally unrecognized separatist region in eastern Ukraine, established in 2014 following Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution.
As a member of the self-proclaimed government of the Oblast, annexed by Russia in 2022, Zavizenov was appointed to his position in August of that year, and subsequently became involved in separatist activities in the region.
He was also responsible for organizing a referendum aimed at integrating Luhansk into Russia, according to sanctions monitoring website OpenSanctions.
Though he was removed from his post in June 2023, his involvement landed him a spot in the list of individuals sanctioned by the European Union, as well as the U.K. and several other nations.
Zavizenov was also included in the List of War Enablers, published by the Anti-Corruption Foundation, an organization founded by prominent Putin oppositionist Alexei Navalny, who died in 2023 after being imprisoned in Russia.
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