A police general, attached to Russia’s Interior Ministry, who was sacked last month as second-in-command of the ministry’s anti-extremism department has been found dead after allegedly committing suicide, the state news agency TASS reported on Monday. It would be another Russian high command, in this military case, who appears to have died in strange circumstances since the beginning of the Russian invasion.
Vladimir Makarov, 72, was found in the village of Golikovo, on the outskirts of Moscow. “The security bodies told us that he committed suicide,” TASS reported.
Russian authorities use the term ‘extremist’ to describe a variety of opposition groups, such as jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalni’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, or outlets that have been banned for organizing anti-government protests or disseminating information deemed harmful to the state. .
Putin fired Makarov, who came to be described as “the main organizer of the ‘hunt’ for opposition activists and uncomfortable journalists.” In other words, Makarov would have been a relevant actor in the repression of the opposition to the Russian government.
The independent Telegram channel VChK-OGPU quoted relatives as saying that Makarov had fallen into a depression after losing his job. He said his wife had found him with a gun next to him.
Makarov is thus the latest high-ranking Russian security figure to die by apparent suicide in recent months.
Last summer, the death by alleged suicide of the generals of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Yevgeny Lobachev, and of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Lev Sotskov, became known.
