Lt. Gen. Vladimir Sviridov, a former Russian air force commander, was found dead alongside his wife in his home in Russia Wednesday, the popular Russian Telegram channel Baza reported.
“What caused the death of Vladimir and Tatiana Sviridov is still unknown,” Baza wrote according to a translation by the New York Post from the original Russian. There were no signs of a violence at the scene, Baza noted. The mysterious death of the 68-year-old Russian general and his 72-year-old wife occurred a week prior to the discovery, the New York Post translated that Baza wrote. (RELATED: ‘The Kremlin Has A Long History Of Killing Its Opponents’: White House Says Its ‘Clear’ What Happened To Prigozhin)
Russian general who ripped Putin for ‘third-rate’ air force found dead with wife in mysterious circumstances https://t.co/h9qfq0VOGU pic.twitter.com/zLfJfNOx6U
— New York Post (@nypost) November 17, 2023
Russian administrators informed Kommersant, a Russian news outlet, Thursday that their working theory was that the two died from carbon monoxide poisoning. The potential poisoning might have merged from a malfunctioning gas boiler when a blackout occurred at the village where the retired general lived, the outlet reported.
“When I found out about his death, my heart was heavy. It’s a shame that people of such a rank, who are worthy of attention and respect, go out in this way. It seems to me that this was an absurd death,” Maj. Gen. Vladimir Popov, an old acquaintance of Vladimir Sviridov, told News.ru, a translation of comments in Russian by the New York Post read.
The Russian general was appointed to the 6th Army of the Air Force and Air Defense from 2005 to 2009 after attacking the readiness of the Russian air force, the New York Post reported. Even during Sviridov’s tenure in that office, which largely coincided with years that Vladimir Putin was the president of Russia, the general also criticized what he saw as the shoddy training standards, the outlet noted. He once called the Russian air force pilots a “third-rate” force being sent to military academies, the New York Post noted.