One of the creators of the Russian Covid vaccine has been brutally strangled to death in his Moscow apartment, in the mysterious new homicide surrounding the country’s elite.
Andrey Botikov, 48, a smart Russian scientist who developed the Sputnik V vaccine, was killed with a belt in an altercation with an intruder in his home.
His frame was discovered Thursday at his home in Moscow, Russian media reported.
He had strangulation marks on his neck, as well as stab wounds and abrasions on his body, according to reports.
Russia’s Investigative Committee (ICR) has now opened a homicide investigation into the death.
A 29-year-old man has been arrested and charged with killing the top virologist in a dispute over money.
Russian media know the suspect as “Alexei Z” and describe him as an ex-convict who spent 10 years in prison for offering sexual services.
In a statement, the ICR did not call Botikov but said investigators knew a suspect “as soon as possible. “
The ICR continued: “During the interrogation, he admitted his guilt, charged.
“Previously, the defendant prosecuted for the commission of a felony. “
Botikov had been applying as a virologist at the Gamaleya National Research Center since 2014, to create the Russian Sputnik V Covid vaccine.
Putin’s scientists have hailed the vaccine as 91% effective in clinical trials, far more than other covid vaccines.
For his work, Botikov revered through Putin with the Order of Merit of the Fatherland in 2021.
Botikov’s death is the newest mysterious spell to fall on a member of Russia’s leading clinical and political elite since the war in Ukraine began.
Last month, a former spy of Putin and a best friend of Vlad’s were killed hours apart in separate incidents in Russia.
The frame of Vyacheslav Rovneiko, 59, who founded Russian energy giant Urals Energy with Putin’s predecessor son-in-law Boris Yeltsin, was found at his home on the outskirts of Moscow late at night.
A few hours later, he announced that a former politician from Putin’s United Russia party, on trial for corruption, had died in custody.
Andrei Bralnin, an elected official from the city of Kotlas in Russia’s Arkhangelsk region, is awaiting trial for allegedly accepting bribes.
Also in February, a top Russian general was found dead, just a month after he was fired by Vladimir Putin.
Maj. Gen. Vladimir Makarov, 72, was found dead in his home near Moscow by a suspected suicide after being fired from his paintings fighting “extremism” for the Russian Interior Ministry.
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