Top Putin war official Marine Yankina plunges to her death

A high-ranking Russian defense official in the war against Ukraine was found dead Wednesday after falling from a 16th-floor window in an apartment building. 

Marina Yankina, 58, was discovered by a passerby at the entrance of a high-rise on Zamshina Street in St Petersburg, Russian news Telegram channel Mash reported.

She is believed to have fallen 160 feet to her death. Her personal belongings and documents were found on a 16th-floor balcony in the building. 

According to a preliminary investigation, it is believed Yankina committed suicide.

Mash reported that a few minutes before allegedly taking her own life, Yankina called her ex-husband and told him what she was about to do.

She also asked the man to summon police to the high-rise on Zamshina Street where he lived.

No official motive has been released, but Mash reported that the 58-year-old was said to have been struggling with health problems.

Yankina was a key figure in the funding of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. 

She was head of the financial support department of the Ministry of Defense for the Western Military District, which is closely involved in the invasion.

The Russian Investigative Committee confirmed Yankina’s death and is leading the probe into her fatal fall. 

Before joining the Western Military District, Yankina worked in the Federal Tax Service, and also served as Deputy Chairman of the Property Relations Committee of St. Petersburg.

Yankina is the latest of many prominent Russian officials and businessmen to have died under mysterious circumstances since the start of the war last year.  

Earlier this week, Russian Ministry of the Interior Maj. Gen. Vladimir Makarov, 72, died of an apparent suicide in a Moscow suburb.

Unconfirmed reports alleged that the general had fallen into a “deep depression” after being sacked by Putin in January.

In November, Col. Vadim Boiko, 44, deputy head of the Makarov Pacific Higher Naval School in Vladivostok, was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds in what has been described as a suicide.

Boiko, who played a role in Putin’s partial mobilization efforts, “executed” himself with five gunshots to the chest in his commander’s office after allegedly being set up to take the fall for some of the problems plaguing the invasion of Ukraine, according to his widow.

In December, sausage tycoon Pavel Antov, who criticized the invasion of Ukraine, plunged to his death from a luxury hotel in India — three days after his friend lost his life on the same trip.