Belgian Executive Working for Russian Oligarch Dies After Plunge From Moscow Window

A Belgian executive employed by one of Russia’s richest men plunged to his death from a nine-story apartment window in Moscow on Wednesday. Bruno Charles De Cooman, the vice president of research and development at Russian oligarch Vladimir Lisin’s Novolipetsk Steel, was found outside the historic House on the Embankment in central Moscow “with signs characteristic of a fall from a height,” a police source told the TASS news agency. The building, just opposite the Kremlin, still features plaques commemorating residents who were “disappeared” during Stalin’s purges in the 1930s. Novolipetsk Steel confirmed De Cooman’s death, but declined to comment “on the details of the tragedy before clarifying all the circumstances.” Many Russia watchers were quick to question on social media whether De Cooman’s death was an accident, citing the country’s history of opposition politicians, businessmen, and critical journalists mysteriously falling out of windows. A police investigation is underway.