Meanwhile:
high-ranking Russian official, with close financial ties to Vladimir Putin, was found dead on Tuesday evening - Law enforcement agencies told the outlet that the death was preliminarily ruled a suicide, some have cast doubt on this account - Konstantin Zavizenov's body was found by his son at a country house in the Istra district of Moscow
He had been on a drinking binge for "a week and a half" prior to his death, according to the largely pro-Kremlin news website Lenta
At the time of Zavizenov's appointment, the firm, one of the country's largest energy companies, was headed by Boris Kovalchuk
Kovalchuk is a Russian billionaire business owner and oligarch who has criticized the Russian president, as "the de facto second man in Russia," and by American government-funded Radio Liberty as "Putin's personal banker."
Zavizenov formerly served as Minister of Fuel, Energy and Coal Industry for the Luhansk People's Republic
He had just one degree of separation from Putin himself through the Kovalchuk mafia family.