Vladimir Nikolaevich Songurkin, an ally of Vladimir Putin, dies of a stroke on a business trip

Another key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin He died this week, this time of an alleged “stroke” while on a business trip in the village of Roshino in Russia’s Far Eastern region.

Vladimir Nikolayevich Songurkin, 68, was the editor-in-chief of the Russian State newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda. According to the newspaper, Songurkin died “suddenly” after showing signs of “suffocation” during the flight on Wednesday.

“It happened all of a sudden, and nothing foreshadowed. We were in the village of Roshino. We were driving, we were already on our way to Khabarovsk, and we planned to get there this evening, and from there to Moscow. Everything was fine, ”writes his colleague Leonid Zakharov, who accompanied him on a business trip, in a story for KP.

According to Zakharov, Songurkin lost consciousness minutes after he suggested to their group “to find a nice place somewhere … for lunch.”

“Three minutes later, Vladimir began to suffocate. We took him outside to get fresh air, he was already unconscious … Nothing helped. The doctor who performed the initial examination said it was apparently a stroke. But this is the initial conclusion ”, colleague wrote.

Songurkin’s death comes amid a string of mysterious deaths of key Putin allies this month. Recently, it was reported that Ivan Pechurin, director of aviation at the Russian Far East and Arctic Development Corporation, had allegedly “fallen from a boat” in Vladivostok, according to local Russian media.

The Komsomolskaya Pravda It has long been known as one of the powerful pro-Kremlin newspapers.

“The legendary Komsomolka has traveled a long creative path over these years and wrote wonderful and unforgettable pages in the history of Russian media,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a statement congratulating the newspaper on the 95th anniversary of its first edition in 2020. “It is of great importance that the current employees of the newspaper pass on these traditions from generation to generation and strive to retain the leading position of the newspaper in the Russian media market.”

In an obituary for Sungorkin, the staff of Komsomolskaya Pravda He wrote that the journalist came from humble beginnings before the newspaper was built into a “great empire,” referring to him as a “symbol of the new national press.”