Vadim Boyko, the deputy director of the Vladivostok Pacific Naval College (“TOVVMU”) was found dead in his office at the school.
The local media suggest that Boyko committed suicide: “This morning, the deputy head of TOVVMU, Vadim Evgenyevich Boyko, shot himself. He came to work and fired a pistol into his temple.”
Vladimir Oschenko, a local TV executive, also believes that Boyko died by suicide. “When officers begin to shoot themselves, something’s amiss with the country and state service,” Oschenko wrote on Facebook, adding that Boyko’s suicide had been confirmed by the Pacific Fleet’s press department and the Admiral Advisors to the fleet commander.
According to the Telegram channel Baza, Victor Boyko was responsible for working with new conscripts. On the morning of November 16, five shots were heard inside his office. Criminal investigators found five bullet casings and four Makarov pistols on the scene. “The colonel must have shot himself in the chest five times,” writes Baza, pointing out the incongruity.
Law enforcement authorities have not yet commented on Boyko’s death.
A month earlier, on October 14, Roman Malyk, military commissar for the city of Partizansk, also in the Russian Primorye region, was found dead. The police were investigating the possibilities of murder and suicide.
Days after the beginning of mobilization in the Irkutsk region, a local resident opened fire in the Ust-Ilimsk military commissariat, wounding the district military commissar, Alexander Eliseyev. The shooter, named Ruslan Zinin, was arrested and charged with an attempt on the life of a serviceman, as well as illegal firearms possession. Astra reported that Zinin’s best friend, who had never served in the military, was unlawfully drafted, which provoked the shooting.
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