Russian Journalist Found Dead After Criticizing Putin’s Russian Regime Of ‘Gigantic Corruption’

A Russian journalist was found dead near a roadside over the weekend after taking aim at Russian officials and promising to release details of “gigantic corruption.”

Alexander Rybin’s body was found near a highway about 130 miles outside of Mariupol, Ukraine, where he was reporting on the Russian invasion.

The initial autopsy deemed cardiomyopathy as the cause of death. However, the circumstances of the incident remain unknown.

“It will be almost impossible to determine whether foul play was involved in Rybin’s death or whether he died of heart disease as some Russian media outlets claim,” strategic military intelligence analyst Rebekah Koffler told Fox News.

In one of his last reports, Rybin said that Mariupol had “gigantic money” and “gigantic opportunities for corruption.” He stated that his “personal impression” was that “there is a gigantic corruption going on in Mariupol, which the Russian army occupied with heavy fighting in spring 2022.”

“The year 2023, in my opinion, is in no way easier for the residents of Mariupol than what was happening in 2022, unfortunately,” Rybin said.

Koffler referenced “scores of Russian journalists” who have been found dead “in mysterious circumstances” after speaking out against Russia.

“What we also know for a fact is that the so-called ‘wet affairs,’ a term used for targeted assassinations, is a tradecraft of Russian intelligence used to eliminate the opponents of the regime,” Koffler said. “Whether Rybin was such a victim of a targeted assassination will likely remain a mystery.”

Since 2022, 39 top Russian officials have died under mysterious circumstances. Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s main political opponent, Alexei Navalny, was poisoned by the FSB, the Russian intelligence service. Navalny is now serving time in an Arctic Russian prison. He claimed to have been poisoned a second time while in prison.