Russian journalist, who wrote about deaths in Syria, dies mysteriously

A Russian investigative journalist who wrote about the deaths of Russian fighters in Syria has died after falling from his fifth-floor flat.  

Maxim Borodin was found severely injured

by neighbours in Yekaterinburg on Thursday. He was taken to a hospital where he eventually died on Sunday. The cause of the fall remains a mystery and no suicide note was found.

However, a friend revealed that Borodin had said his flat had been surrounded by security the day before. Vyacheslav Bashkov said Borodin had contacted him at 5;00 am on Wednesday, April 11, saying there was "someone with a weapon on his balcony and people in camouflage and masks on the staircase landing". 

He told him he had been looking for a lawyer but later said he was wrong and that the security men had been taking part in some sort of exercise. Authorities said the door of his flat had been locked from the inside, indicating that no-one else had either entered or left the flat.

The chief editor of Novy Den, where Borodin worked before he died, said she could not rule out a crime, adding there was no reason for him to kill himself.

In March, Borodin wrote about bodies believed to be those of mercenaries being delivered to a regional village. Thousands of mercenaries reportedly have been deployed to Syria by a shadowy contracting company believed to be bankrolled by Yevgeny Prigozhin. Prigozhin was indicted by the US in February on charges that he funded the "troll factory" alleged to have tried to influence the 2016 presidential election, Metro.co.uk reports.