Photo credit: Twitter | @CarrollQuigley1

Russian investigative journalist Maksim Borodin, who had written several investigative pieces about the so-called ‘shadow-army’ of mercenaries his country had placed in Syria, was found dead after falling from his 5th floor apartment in Yekaterinburg (a major city in the Urals).

The local Russian police force said afterwards that “there are no grounds for launching a case. Several versions are being considered, including that this was an unfortunate accident, but there is no sign a crime has been committed.”

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Mr Borodin had written several pieces which confirmed the astonishing claim made by Mr Mike Pompeo (who currently still serves as CIA director) when he was questioned by congress for his confirmation as Secretary of State about the army of mercenaries Russia had operating in Syria.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Russian investigative journalist Maksim Borodin died of injuries on April 12 when he fell from the window of his flat.Borodin had recently written about the deaths of Russian mercenaries fighting in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Syria?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Syria</a>.Since the 90s,dozens of Russian journalists have been murdered.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Syrie24hEN?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Syrie24hEN</a></p>— Syrie 24h (@syrie24h) <a href="https://twitter.com/syrie24h/status/985797616045903873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2018</a></blockquote>

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At the time, Mr Pompeo was asked about a February 2018 attack by US special forces on a group of Syrians who were claimed to have worked alongside Russian mercenaries.

Mr Pompeo at the time stated: “In Syria, now, a handful of weeks ago the Russian met their match. A couple hundred Russians were killed.”

This statement raised a lot of eyebrows in Russia and people started discussing the articles of Mr Borodin on the issue.

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However, according to the editor of Noviy Den, Ms Polina Rumyantseva, there was no reason to class the death as suicide: “We were able to visit the apartment of Maxim together with the police and forensic experts on Friday. The intermediate conclusion is that Maxim fell out of the balcony of his apartment where he probably was smoking.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Russian?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Russian</a> investigative journalist Maksim Borodin died after a "fall" from the window of his fifth-floor apartment. He was investigating <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Putin?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Putin</a>'s mercenary forces in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Syria?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Syria</a>. RIP <a href="https://t.co/KWnEhPtt1t">https://t.co/KWnEhPtt1t</a> <a href="https://t.co/wwqOaOT8Pl">pic.twitter.com/wwqOaOT8Pl</a></p>— Christian Turner (@CombatChris1) <a href="https://twitter.com/CombatChris1/status/986134171432005632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 17, 2018</a></blockquote>

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“As Maxim had big plans for his personal life and career, there is nothing to support a verdict of suicide.”

Source:

https://www.rferl.org/a/yekaterinburg-journalist-dies-after-falling-from-apartment-window/29168826.html