Russian judge known for punishing the Kremlin’s foes is found dead after falling from a high window in Moscow

A Russian judge has been found dead after falling from a high window in Moscow.

Natalia Larina, 50, had a reputation for handing out sentences to enemies of the Moscow authorities and supporting Russia’s FSB secret services, but was best known for her high-profile criminal cases.

An investigation into the cause of her death has been launched near her apartment building on 1st Mashinostroeniya Street in the Russian capital.

According to reports, Larina had an underage daughter.

Investigators are said to have checked a theory from local reports showing that she had lost a large sum of money to ‘telephone fraudsters’.

Natalia Larina (pictured), 50, had a reputation for imposing punishment on enemies of the Moscow authorities and supporting the FSB secret services, but was best known for prominent criminal cases

Shortly before her death, she reportedly reported to police that fraudsters had convinced her that her bank account was being threatened by people trying to send her money to help Ukraine’s armed forces.

She transferred her money, reportedly one million rubles (about £8,800), to another account, becoming the victim of a scam.

Many Russians have fallen for this type of fraud in recent months.

Sources say she became upset because she was “misled” and left a note.

However, there has been no official confirmation of this version of events so far.

Larina was a criminal judge for more than fifteen years and her death came months after she suddenly left the Tagansky court.

She was a judge in several high-profile fraud cases.

In 2015, she took into custody artist Pyotr Pavlensky, who set fire to a door of the FSB building on Lubyanka Square during a political protest.

Earlier she pronounced a judgment against the hardline National Bolsheviks.

And in 2011, Larina convicted Vladimir Makarov, an official of the Ministry of Transport, accused of sexually abusing his daughter.

Larina is not the only senior Russian official whose death by fall from a window has raised suspicions since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In December 2023, 46-year-old Vladimir Egorov, the Tobolsk City Duma, fell to his death from a third-floor window in the city.

Larina is not the only senior Russian official whose death by fall from a window has raised suspicions since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In December 2023, Vladimir Egorov, 46 (pictured), fell to his death from a third-floor window

In June 2023, the glamorous vice president of a Russian bank, Kristina Baikova, 28, reportedly plunged to her death after falling from the window of her Moscow apartment.

In February 2023, 58-year-old Russian defense official Marina Yankina was found dead after falling 50 meters from a tower block window.

He was a member of Vladimir Putin’s ruling United Russia party and his body was found in the garden of his home.

In June of the same year, the glamorous vice president of a Russian bank reportedly plunged to her death after falling from the window of her Moscow apartment.

Kristina Bajkova, 28, is said to have fallen from her 11th floor apartment on Khodynsky Boulevard in the early hours. She died instantly on the spot.

In February, a top Russian defense official was found dead after falling 50 meters from a tower block window. Marina Yankina, 58, was discovered by a passerby at the entrance of a house on Zamshina Street in Saint Petersburg.

It is believed that she fell from the 16th floor to her death.

Furthermore, in December 2022, multimillionaire Pavel Antov, who had criticized Putin’s war in Ukraine, was found dead after a mysterious fall from a hotel in India.

Antov, also from the main pro-Putin United Russia party, had been traveling to celebrate his upcoming 66th birthday when he died mysteriously.

And before that, in September 2022, the chairman of a Russian oil company who criticized Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was found dead under suspicious circumstances after jumping from a sixth-floor window of a Moscow hospital.

Ravil Maganov, 67, chairman of Lukoil, died on the spot after falling from a window on the sixth floor of Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital.

In December 2022, Pavel Antov, Russia’s “highest-earning elected politician” who had criticized Putin’s war in Ukraine, was found dead after a mysterious fall from a hotel in India.

Ravil Maganov, 67, (pictured with Putin after receiving a medal), chairman of Russian oil giant Lukoil, died on the spot after falling from a sixth-floor window of Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital in September 2022.

Russian state media quickly said his death was a suicide, but law enforcement sources said there was no suicide note and no CCTV cameras on the part of the building where Maganov fell.

Lukoil was one of the few major Russian companies to call for an end to fighting in Ukraine after Moscow invaded.

In a statement in the days after the invasion, Lukoil’s administration called for an “immediate” cessation of fighting and expressed condolences to those affected by the “tragedy” of Russia’s so-called special military operation in Ukraine .

Seven months later, Maganov was found dead after falling from the hospital window.