Major General Vladimir Makarov, 67, who was fired by Vladimir Putin a month ago has been found shot dead at his home near Moscow on Monday.
He was in charge of ‘combatting extremism’ in Russia, reportedly leading the witchhunt to oust the President’s rivals, as well as journalists, per The Sun.
The general is said to have hunted down and suppressed any opponents of Putin‘s totalitarian regime.
He also waged war on the thousands of young people who courageously protested against the Kremlin.
Makarov’s wife Valentina was in a country house with her husband in Golikovo village near Moscow at 7am when she heard a gunshot, local reports said.
Some reports said a Berkut-2M hunting rifles was found nearby. Other accounts said a pistol was discovered.
His wife summoned a family member and called an ambulance but paramedics could not save Makarov, said reports, and he was pronounced dead.
The dead general’s family were being interrogated by the Russian Investigative Committee, reported Moskovsky Komsomolets, a Moscow-based daily newspaper.
The publication said that firearms were kept inside the house.
According to DailyMail, Makarov is not the first death of a former high-profile Russian to raise eyebrows, with dozens of Russian businessmen being found dead since the start of 2022 in unexplained circumstances.
From December 24 to 26, there was a string of four mysterious deaths.
On December 26, Pavel Antonov – the richest deputy of the Russian Duma (parliament) and a Putin critic – died in India falling out of a hotel window.
His companion Vladimir Bidenov was found dead in the same hotel four days earlier.
Aleksey Maslov, 69, the former chief of Russian Ground Forces, died in hospital on 25 December while Aleksandr Buzakov – head of Russia’s ‘admiralty shipyards’ for a decade – died on December 24.
In July, retired Major General of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation Yevgeny Lobachev, 76, was found dead in Moscow in July. His death was also ruled as suicide.
