Former Putin Adviser Suffered Injury Consistent with ‘Hanging or Strangulation’ in 2015

Two years after filing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, Radio Free Europe on Saturday obtained 149 pages of documents from the Washington, DC, medical examiner that revealed a former Russian press minister who died in a Washington hotel room suffered injuries consistent with strangulation.

The report did not conclude Mikhail Lesin was definitely murdered in 2015. Allowances were made by the medical examiner for the possibility that a fracture in Lesin’s hyoid bone below the jawline could have been sustained “after death,” possibly even during the autopsy.

The official ruling was that Lesin died accidentally, possibly as a result of injuries sustained while drunk in his hotel room. The medical examiner’s initial report found signs of blunt force trauma to the head, neck, torso, and extremities that were “induced by falls.”

Fractures in the hyoid are commonly associated with hanging or strangulation, but the medical examiner said he could not “exclude a significant fall as a cause for the fracture,” and further noted it could have happened when the body was handled after death. Radio Free Europe quoted medical documents that assert hyoid fractures from “trauma other than strangulation” are “very rare.”

RFE noted a number of anomalies in the official story of Lesin’s death, including his unusual decision to check out of the Four Seasons hotel and into the less luxurious Dupont Circle Hotel where he died. Several unusual inquiries were made by unknown officials after his death. His reasons for being in Washington remain enigmatic as he was phenomenally wealthy, owned several mansions plus a yacht, and had no apparent reason for living in a hotel. His accomplishments as a media mogul included founding Russia Today (RT).

Stated bluntly, some of Lesin’s associates and critics of Vladimir Putin believe Putin’s former press minister fell out of favor, possibly became involved in a money-laundering scheme, might have been preparing to leave his wife for a much younger fashion model, and was professionally assassinated to keep him quiet or prevent him from embarrassing Putin.

Under this theory, Lesin’s well-known history of prodigious drinking and erratic behavior provided the perfect cover to make his death look accidental. Some versions of the Lesin murder theory speculate he was killed by accident while his assailants were beating him up to send him a message.

One of the people who believe Lesin was murdered, and who would go on to become well-known for entirely different reasons, was former British spy Christopher Steele. RFE cited media reports from 2018 that said Steele presented the FBI with “a report stating that Lesin was bludgeoned to death by enforcers working for an oligarch close to Putin.”

“What I can tell you is that there isn’t a single person inside the bureau who believes this guy got drunk, fell down, and died. Everyone thinks he was whacked and that Putin or the Kremlin were behind it,” an FBI agent said off the record in 2017.

The Associated Press on Saturday recalled some of the odd details of Lesin’s death, including a well-timed gap in hotel security footage, heavy redactions in the official police report, and the “long history of high-profile Russians turning up dead or seriously ill in foreign countries.”