Russian Police Chief Found Dead at Home Weeks After Putin Fired Him

A former Russian police general who had been recently dismissed by Russian President Vladimir Putin has been found dead in an apparent suicide. 

Major General Vladimir Makarov, 72, had overseen the government’s crackdown on anti-war protesters in his role as deputy chief of the Russian police’s anti-extremism unit. 

He was described as having been “the main organiser of the ‘hunt’ for opposition activists and inconvenient journalists,” independent Russian news website the Moscow Times, no longer based inside Russia, reported, quoting a popular Telegram channel. 

Putin dismissed him in late January.

Russian state news agency Tass reported that Makarov had killed himself.

Daily newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, whose editor is close to Putin, reported that Makarov’s wife found his body on Monday morning outside their country home in Golikovo, near Moscow. “The nature of the injuries suggested that he committed suicide. It is known that firearms were kept in the house,” the newspaper said.

Makarov is just one in a string of former and high-ranking Russian officials to have died by suicide in recent months. 

Over the summer, it was reported that retired FSB Major General Yevgeny Lobachev and Major General Lev Sotskov of the Foreign Intelligence Service were found dead in what were reported to be separate suicides.