A former top Russian military official who was fired by Vladimir Putin last month was found dead on Monday in an apparent suicide.
Russian Ministry of the Interior Major General Vladimir Makarov, 72, was found dead in a country house in the village of Golikovo, near Moscow, according to Russian state news agency TASS.
Makarov’s wife reportedly found him with a single gunshot wound to the head and a gun by his side. The couple’s son called an ambulance but paramedics were unable to save the general.
Makarov was the deputy head of the Interior Ministry’s Main Directorate for Combating Extremism. He reportedly led the effort to persecute opposition activists and independent journalists, until he was fired by Vladimir Putin last month, according to Reuters.
Relatives said Makarov “did not know what to do with himself” after Putin fired him and had fallen into a “deep depression.”
Several high ranking Russian officials have died under mysterious circumstances or their deaths ruled as suicides since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine nearly one year ago.
Anatoly Gerashchenko,73, the former head of Moscow’s Aviation Institute (MAI) died in September after falling “from a great height” down “several flights of stairs”.
Retired Major General of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation Yevgeny Lobachev, 76, was found dead in Moscow in July. Col. Vadim Boiko, 44, deputy head of the Makarov Pacific Higher Naval School in Vladivostok was found dead from multiple gun shot wounds to his chest in November. Their deaths were also ruled as suicides.
