Lawyer for Russian Whistleblower's Family Falls Out of Window

março 04, 2022 Postar um comentário

Three Russian doctors working to treat coronavirus patients have mysteriously fallen out of windows in recent weeks, underscoring the country's struggling health care system — and leading to suspicions of foul play.

On April 24, Natalya Lebedeva, the primary of emergency medical services at a preparation base for Russian astronauts, fell out of a window at the hospital where she was being treated for a Covid-xix infection and died.

Yelena Nepomnyashchaya, the top doctor at a hospital in Siberia, fell out of a window during a conference phone call at her hospital and died on May 1 subsequently a week in intensive care.

The next day, ambulance physician Alexander Shulepov roughshod from a 2nd-floor window at the infirmary where he worked and had been receiving treatment for Covid-19. He remains in serious status with a fractured skull.

Russian authorities are investigating all three incidents, and there is no official indication even so of what happened to the physicians. The circumstances effectually their falls, though, are more than a little suspicious.

For case, Nepomnyashchaya was on a briefing telephone call with a top Russian wellness official near plans for turning one of the buildings at her medical facility into a coronavirus handling ward. She disagreed with the thought, and savage out of the window during the telephone call, according to local media.

And Shulepov had, along with a colleague, posted a video online on April 22 — the day he was admitted for coronavirus care — lament that he had been forced to work despite contracting the disease. Five days afterward, Shulepov retracted his comments, saying he had spoken in "an emotional state." Less than a week later, he fell out of a window.

The circumstances effectually Lebedeva's fall at the Russian astronaut grooming center are less clear, with the hospital where she died releasing a argument proverb she "died tragically" in an "accident," with no additional details provided.

A medical staff worker in protective gear gets off an ambulance at the Novomoskovsky multipurpose medical center for patients with suspected coronavirus infections on May 5, 2020.

And then what's going on hither? Is it possible this is all an unfortunate coincidence? Are Russian medical facilities, creaking under the strain of the coronavirus, struggling to proceed people safe? Or is in that location something more nefarious going on? Is the Russian government surreptitiously killing people who speak out nigh the failures of the state's coronavirus response?

Nobody yet knows for sure, but it's worth looking into what we practise know nigh each incident and the theories surrounding them.

What we know about the lives and falls of the iii doctors

The amount of available details on each instance varies widely. Merely what's available at least allows for some idea of what happened.

Not much has yet come up out on Lebedeva, the 48-twelvemonth-quondam who led the emergency medical squad in the astronaut training base of operations in Star City, simply on the outskirts of Moscow. Some reports indicate she may have helped treat Moscow'due south coronavirus "patient zip."

After she contracted the coronavirus, she was hospitalized at the Federal Scientific Clinical Center in Moscow on April twenty. Four days later, she fell out of a sixth-flooring window and died instantly.

The infirmary labeled her plunge an accident in a argument, besides offering some kind words about her time leading the medical team: "She was a true professional in her field, saving human lives every day!" Merely other than that, much remains a mystery.

More is known about what happened in the case of Nepomnyashchaya, the 47-yr-quondam who ran the Krasnoyarsk Regional Hospital for War Veterans.

During an April conference call with Boris Nemik, the regional minister of health, she pushed back on demands for her to brand 80 beds in a role of her infirmary available to treat coronavirus patients. Reportedly, her biggest concern was that her staff didn't have plenty personal protective equipment to care for Covid-nineteen patients.

The local Ministry of Health denied that her fifty-foot fall from her office window had annihilation to exercise with the conference call. And Aleksey Podkorytov, the deputy head of the Krasnoyarsk region's government, offered some alternative explanations for her plunge.

Members of the International Infinite Station expedition 59/60, NASA astronauts Christina Hammock Koch and Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, walk during their final exam at the Gagarin Cosmonauts' Training Center in Star City outside Moscow on February 20, 2019.

"So many things could have happened," he told reporters in April. "It could have been considering information technology was spring, the overall stress, something in her family unit. It's hard to say what could have happened. ... In that location was nothing boggling happening at the time, but a routine conference call with doctors' reports."

Every bit for Shulepov, who fell out of the Novousmanskaya infirmary's second-floor window last Saturday, more is known because of what he posted online. On Apr 22, the 37-year-sometime physician and his colleague Alexander Kosyakin made a video in which they claimed they nevertheless had to work at their infirmary despite falling sick with the coronavirus.

"Ambulance doctor Alexander Shulepov is next to me, he is just confirmed Covid-19," Kosyakin said in the video. "The chief physician is forcing u.s.a. to work. What do we do in this situation?"

"We are not leaving the shift," Kosyakin connected. "Myself and Alexander ha[ve] been working together for a month. This is the situation. Anybody says it'due south fake [but] these are existent facts for you." They also noted that the southwestern metropolis of Voronezh — where they both work — was depression on personal protective equipment.

Merely five days later, Shulepov had changed his message in a new video posted to Instagram. "I have a runny nose, otherwise all is well," he said, adding that "we were loftier on emotions" when he and Kosyakin fabricated the first video.

Some call back it'southward possible authorities put pressure on Shulepov. His colleague, Kosyakin, had previously complained nigh the lack of medical equipment and hospital leadership, leading police to question him for allegedly posting fake news.

Kosyakin, who spoke to CNN on Tuesday, seems suspicious about what happened to Shulepov. When he concluding checked in with his colleague on Apr xxx, "He felt fine, he was getting fix to become discharged from the infirmary," Kosyakin said. "And suddenly this happened, it's not clear why and what for, then many questions that I don't even take the reply to."

Iii incidents, three mysteries. It remains unclear what happened in each case, but experts take some thoughts.

Three leading theories for what's going on

Ask a group of Russia experts what's going on with these cases and yous'll likely get a different answer from each ane. But three explanations seem to be the most prevalent: suicides, assassinations, and the perils of an ailing health intendance system.

Suicide

Dr. Vasiliy Vlassov, an epidemiologist at the Higher Schoolhouse of Economics in Moscow, said these could be cases of expiry by suicide. "I believe that this cluster is a reflection of really loftier incidence of suicides nowadays, because chief physicians are working under high pressure," he told me. Because guns are hard to obtain in the land, "jumping is a reasonable option."

Judy Twigg, an expert on Russia's health care organisation at Virginia Democracy University, agreed. She told me all three cases have "intense stress" in common, either over the lack of personal protective equipment in the hospitals where the individuals worked or because the people got sick themselves.

Farther, the iii cases happened outside Moscow, which has most of the funding and medical equipment needed to properly treat coronavirus patients. The facilities where the three doctors worked, like many others in the country and around the world, "are breaking more under the strain," Twigg said.

Workers at the construction site of a field infirmary in Pavilion No. 75 at the VDNKh exhibition center during the pandemic of the novel coronavirus disease on May 4, 2020.

Death past suicide is a plausible theory, every bit suicide is a persistent national trouble. Co-ordinate to the World Health Arrangement, Russian federation has the third-highest suicide rate in the earth. In 2016, the latest yr for which there'due south complete data, near 122 people a day died past suicide in Russia, adding up to around 45,000 deaths.

That explanation is bolstered by reporting from the Russian daily Moskovsky Komsomolets, which quoted some of Lebedeva's colleagues claiming she had been accused of spreading the illness to her subordinates, so therefore it was possible she died by suicide.

Assassination

"I would not be surprised if the security services were involved, sending a message to continue quiet on the crisis," said Alina Polyakova, president of the Centre for European Policy Analysis.

For many, that might sound conspiratorial. Would the Russian government actually kill medical professionals just because they questioned or criticized the country's handling of the coronavirus crunch?

But this theory is not every bit far-fetched as it may seem. "It'southward not a conspiracy theory," Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Estonia'due south president from 2006 to 2016, tweeted on Mon. He added that "defenestrations are a long term practice," using the technical term for the act of throwing someone out of a window.

There are previous cases of Russian officials allegedly trying to kill adversaries by pushing them out of windows. In 2017, Russian lawyer Nikolai Gorokhov was due to testify in a Moscow courtroom against the authorities. But the solar day before he could exercise then, he fell from his fourth-floor flat. The first news outlet to arrive at the scene? LifeNews, an outlet closely associated with Russia's security services.

In a 2017 interview with NBC News, Gorokhov — who'd fractured his skull but ultimately survived the fall — said what happened to him was probable foul play. "This was no blow," he said. "Someone planned this, just unfortunately I do not remember the details." He refused to elaborate further, saying he feared for his life and for the safety of his family.

There'due south too a pattern of Kremlin adversaries being assassinated through other, even more than elaborate ways. For case, in 2009 Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was poisoned in prison, likely considering he had uncovered a massive authorities-linked fraud scheme that threatened peak officials. Six years later, Boris Nemtsov, a top rival to President Vladimir Putin, was killed in the heart of Moscow. And in 2018, 2 Russians tried to kill with a nervus agent a former Kremlin spy living in the UK.

Murder, then, may non be completely out of the question.

A stressed health care organisation

At a time when Russian federation's medical facilities are full and rubber isn't a tiptop concern, information technology'due south possible that three health intendance providers over the bridge of a few weeks made tragic missteps simply because they were tired and overworked.

"This is really about the devastation of our healthcare organization," Anastasia Vasilyeva, a staunch Kremlin critic and head of the Alliance of Doctors Union, told CNN on Tuesday. "A lot of clinics and hospitals have been closed. ... And, of form, this means it is very hard to treat in such weather a lot of patients with coronavirus."

This is conceivable. Though Russia'south health care system was relatively well prepared for a large public health crisis, at to the lowest degree compared to many other countries, it has a trouble with old and faulty equipment. And many facilities outside the land'due south ii major urban areas — Moscow and St. Petersburg — lack the resources to provide proper care.

Merely, as fifty-fifty President Vladimir Putin admits, the coronavirus crisis in the country is getting worse and worse.

"Ahead of u.s.a. is a new stage, perchance the about intense phase of the fight against the epidemic," Putin said in a national accost terminal week, in which he likewise announced an extension of his nation'southward lockdown until May 11. "The risks of getting infected are at the highest level, and the threat, the mortal danger of the virus persists."

As Russia becomes ane of Europe's worst-hitting countries, information technology's possible that weary, ill physicians may have taken some missteps in such trying times.

The promise is that Russian regime not only fully investigate what's happened just provide detailed, truthful answers. But given Russia'southward rail record, that upshot could be the to the lowest degree likely of all.

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Source: https://www.vox.com/2020/5/6/21248553/coronavirus-russia-doctors-windows-death

Scott Oltous