A top Russian general who ran the construction of Vladimir Putin’s £1 billion palace – allegedly paid for “with the largest bribe in history” – has died.
General Gennady Lopyrev is the second high-ranking military official to have mysteriously died in the last few days.
The 69-year-old suddenly became ill on Monday while in jail – gasping for breath – and was told by doctors he had previously undiagnosed leukaemia.
There are now suspicions the general, who worked in the president’s personal guard, was poisoned just as he became eligible for parole.
In 2017, Lopyrev was sentenced to 10 years behind bars on charges of bribery in excess of six million rubles and illegal possession of weapons, which he denied.
Serving in the Federal Protection Service (FSO), he personally oversaw the erection of Putin’s clifftop Gelendzhik Palace on the Black Sea coast.
The mysterious property featured in a viral video by Alexei Navalny, which showed it to be full of luxuries gifted to the war despot by his cronies.
The Kremlin critic had previously identified the general as the person who knew all the secrets behind the mansion.
Lopyrev was also responsible for Putin’s official residence Bocharov Ruchei in Sochi.
Up to his jailing he had been one of his closest security aides, and was seen with the Russian president and then British premier Tony Blair in Moscow in 2002.
For years, his conviction was seen by some as based on trumped up charges to get him out of the way.
Hours before his death, he spoke to his son Alexander, who stressed there was not “one single complaint about his health”, Telegram channel VChK-OGPU reported.
