Lt. Gen. Alexander Kubasov, the former head of the Yaroslavl regional office of the FSB, the Russian federal security service, was found dead in a hotel room outside Moscow, RIU.ru reports. Curiously, the cause of death wasn’t foul play, but viral pneumonia.
The 62-year-old Kubasov was not known to be ill, and it is not known why he would check in to a hotel rather than go to a hospital to be treated for pneumonia. It is also not known if the illness was rooted in the coronavirus, which is causing deaths Moscow is attempting to downplay the impact of the pandemic.
It’s also unknown what Kubasov was doing in suburban Moscow, approximately 180 miles from his home in Yaroslavl.