United Russia politician found hanged in suspicious circumstances in southern Russia 

A local politician from the ruling United Russia party has been found dead in southern Russia’s Krasnodar region, regional news sites KP-Kuban and 93.ru reported on Thursday, citing eyewitnesses, one of whom said that the deputy’s hands had been bound behind his back.

According to KP-Kuban, Vitaly Kapustin, 43, who had served as a local deputy in the Krasnodar region’s Tikhoretsky District Council for over six years and chaired the body’s agriculture and land management committee, was found hanged by a car cable in a wooded area near the village of Novorozhdestvenskaya, in the northeast of the Krasnodar region on Thursday. 

According to one eyewitness account published by regional outlet 93.ru, Kapustin was found hanging with his hands tied behind his back. “I saw how high he was. If my eyes didn’t deceive me, his hands were tied together behind his back. I mean, a person couldn’t climb up that easily by themself, the trees there were very tall,” the eyewitness said. 

Local investigators have said that Kapustin’s death did not appear to be criminally motivated, and that the case was being treated as a likely suicide. 

“Kapustin was found dead,” a local law enforcement official told TASS, a state-owned Russian news agency. Local governmental officials have yet to comment on the deputy’s death, however.