A former Russian official is believed to have died after falling out of a window in Moscow.
Buvaysar Saitiev, 50, was found in a ‘serious condition’ on the ground outside a house on Minskaya Street in the Russian capital on Sunday.
A janitor, who found the former Russian MP, said that it was unclear what had happened as he had no visible blood or injuries, per Baza.
He was hurriedly taken to hospital by ambulance, where he died.
Indira Saitiev, his widow, told Moskovsky Komsomolets that she believes he fell from the window of his apartment on the 2nd floor of the building ‘by accident’.
She said her husband, a three-time Olympic wrestling champion, was ‘not very’ injured by the fall itself, suffering a nondescript pelvic injury and rib fractures.
‘The height was small, so the injuries [were] not that severe,’ she said.
Moskovsky Komsomolets reported that it was ‘already clear’ that the fall did not kill Satiev.
His sporting allies later said that Saitiev had suffered a cardiac arrest before his death, TASS reported.
The incident is the latest in a string of recent tragedies where Russian politicians and businesspeople have died after plunging from windows across the country.
Buvaysar Saitiev was an acting State Duma deputy in Dagestan between 2016 and 2021
Saitiev waves after winning the gold medal over Hungary’s Arpad Ritte in the men’s freestyle wrestling 74kg final at the World Wrestling Championships in Budapest, Hungary, Sep 27. 2005
Saitiev is believed to have been with others in the apartment when he fell on March 2.
Indira said she left the house at 11am, leaving Buvaysar with his brother and two children behind, per Moskovsky Komsomolets.
‘He was lying in bed, but he wasn’t sleeping. Maybe he was dozing a little and watching TV,’ she said.
Indira believes her husband fell through the ‘large, panoramic’ bedroom window by accident.
The outlet speculates he may not have known what he was doing.
‘He suffered from a serious lung disease and was forced to take strong painkillers,’ it claimed.
Makhmud Magomedov, executive director of the Freestyle Wrestling Federation of the Republic of Dagestan, told TASS that Saitiev had problems with his lungs.
‘The cause of death was cardiac arrest. He took medications that caused complications. His entire family was with him in Moscow, in the hospital,’ he told the news agency.
Saitiev was just 50 when he died.
The 6ft Dagestani freestyle wrestler won nine world-level gold medals in his sport before retiring in 2008.
This included wins at the Olympics in 1996, 2004 and – his swansong – 2008.
A number of Russian officials and prominent businesspeople have died or been seriously injured after falling from windows in recent years.
Colonel Alexey Zubkov – an employee for the Russian Investigative Committee – survived after falling 40ft from a bathroom window last month, mk.ru reported.
Miraculously, Col. Zubkov was ‘conscious’ after his fall and ‘briskly answered questions’ but was unable to explain the reasons for his plunge.
Col. Zubkov’s fall came soon after a Russian anti-monopoly service official Artur Pryakhin, 56, who had previously been a police colonel, was found dead after he fell from a fifth floor window in Petrozavodsk.
Authorities were reportedly looking into his death, but official media outlets rushed out reports that he died by ‘suicide’ before an investigation had concluded.
Oligarch Mikhail Rogachev, 64, died after mysteriously falling 110ft from a window at his Moscow home in October 2024.
The vice-president of Russian oil giant Yukos, which was forced out of business for turning against the tyrant president Vladimir Putin, was found at the entrance to his building by an employee of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency, local media said.
TV channels reported that he lived on the tenth floor and that it was a suicide, claiming he had cancer and left a note.
But these reports were vehemently denied by his close friends and relatives.
A general view of Minskaya Street in the Russian capital, where Saitiev fell from a window
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting in Moscow on February 27, 2025
His relatives insisted there were no signs that he was suicidal and he was in a ‘good mood’ shortly before his death.
In 2023, leading war official Marina Yankina, 58, head of the financial support department of the Russian Defence Ministry’s Western Military District, was found dead after falling 160ft from a 16th-floor window in St. Petersburg.
The circumstances surrounding her death remain unclear.
In 2022, Ravil Maganov, chairman of Lukoil, Russia’s second-largest oil company, died when he fell from a sixth floor window at Moscow’s elite Central Clinical Hospital, also known as the Kremlin Clinic.
