(TheLibertyRevolution.com)- Last week, the editor-in-chief of Russian state newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda died of an alleged stroke while returning from a business trip in the village of Roshchino in Russia’s far-eastern region.
Vladimir Nikolayevich Sungorkin, 68, a top ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, died last Wednesday after exhibiting signs of “suffocation” during the trip, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.
His colleague Leonid Zakharov, who was also on the trip, told the paper that Sungorkin’s symptoms came on “absolutely suddenly,” as they were near the town of Khabarovsk on their way back to Moscow. As they were looking for a place to stop for lunch, Sungorkin became unconscious and then began to suffocate. Zakharov and the rest of their party took Sungorkin outside to get him some air, but he was unconscious.
The doctor who initially examined Sungorkin suggested that he may have expired from a stroke.
Sungorkin’s death comes after a string of mysterious deaths of Putin allies over the last month, including most recently, the death of Ivan Pechorin, the aviation director for Russia’s Far-East and Arctic Development Corporation who allegedly died after falling from a boat in Vladivostok.
In an obituary in Komsomolskaya Pravda, Sungorkin was hailed as “a symbol of the new national journalism” for coming from humble beginnings before building the paper into a “mighty empire.”
Sungorkin’s Komsomolskaya Pravda has long been a staunch pro-Kremlin newspaper.
While celebrating the newspaper’s 95th anniversary in 2020, President Putin lauded Komsomolskaya Pravda for its “unforgettable” contribution to the history of Russian media.
