A senior Russian defense official who was involved in the conflict with Ukraine was discovered dead on Wednesday after falling from a tall apartment building window.
According to the Russian news Telegram channel Mash, Marina Yankina, 58, was found by a bystander at the entrance of a high-rise on Zamshina Street in St. Petersburg.
She is thought to have died after falling 160 feet. In the building, on a balcony, were her personal items and papers.
A preliminary inquiry indicates that Yankina may have committed suicide.
According to Mash, Yankina called her ex-husband just before supposedly killing herself and told him what she was planning to do.
She also requested that he call the police to his apartment building on Zamshina Street.
No official explanation has been given, but according to Mash, the 58-year-old was reportedly having health issues.
Yankina played a significant role in helping to finance Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
She oversaw the Ministry of Defense’s financial assistance division for the Western Military District, which is heavily involved in the invasion.
Yankina’s death was confirmed, and the investigation into her tragic fall is being handled by the Russian Investigative Committee.
Yankina previously worked for the Federal Tax Service and held the position of deputy head of the Property Relations Committee of St. Petersburg before joining the Western Military District.
Yankina is the most recent in a long list of notable Russian politicians and businessmen who have perished inexplicably since the war began last year.
Maj. Gen. Vladimir Makarov, 72, of the Russian Ministry of the Interior, died this week in what appears to have been a suicide in a Moscow suburb.
Col. Vadim Boiko, 44, a deputy head of the Makarov Pacific Higher Naval School in Vladivostok, was discovered dead in November from numerous gunshot wounds in what authorities have deemed to be a suicide.
Three days after his friend died on the same vacation in December, the sausage tycoon Pavel Antov, who opposed the invasion of Ukraine, plunged to his death from a five-star hotel in India.
