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MOSCOW — A Russian journalist who wrote about the deaths of Russian mercenaries in Syria has died after falling from his apartment balcony.

The news website Novy Den said its reporter Maxim Borodin died at a hospital on Sunday. He fell Thursday from his fifth-floor balcony in Yekaterinburg.

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The cause of the fall was unclear. Russian news reports cited police as saying the apartment was locked from the inside.

In March, Borodin wrote about bodies believed to be those of mercenaries being delivered to a regional village.

Thousands of mercenaries reportedly have been deployed to Syria by a shadowy contracting company believed to be bankrolled by Yevgeny Prigozhin. Prigozhin was indicted by the U.S. in February on charges that he funded the “troll factory” alleged to have tried to influence the 2016 presidential election.