A Russian journalist has been found dead near a highway in the Rostov region just days after slamming the Kremlin’s “reconstruction” efforts in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, which was obliterated by Russian troops who claimed to be “liberating” it.
Alexander Rybin, 39, freelanced for pro-Kremlin media outlets while working for the left-wing outlet Rabkor. His body was found Sunday near the city of Shakhty, with investigators immediately dismissing any suspicions about his death in comments to state-run media and claiming that he’d died of cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle.
“What happened to him is unknown. And perhaps we will never know the whole truth about this story. Sudden death from natural causes? Sasha did not give the impression of being sick and never complained about his health. And if he was killed, then who did it, why and how?” Rabkor wrote in announcing his death.
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Rybin, who fought among pro-Russian forces in Ukraine’s Luhansk region during the first wave of the Kremlin’s war in 2014, had recently visited Mariupol to report on conditions in the ravaged city that Vladimir Putin has declared would “forever” be part of Russia.
His assessment was not a positive one for the Kremlin.
“There is gigantic money here, there are gigantic opportunities for corruption,” Rybin said in his Dec. 30 report from Mariupol.
“My personal impression—I’m not accusing anybody of anything… is that there is gigantic corruption going on in Mariupol,” he said.
