Gen. Alexei Maslov suddenly died on Christmas Day hours after President Vladimir Putin canceled a visit to the former Russian official's tank factory, Daily Mail reported.
Maslov, 69, is said to have fallen ill and did not suffer any known health conditions, according to the Telegram channel Redacted Number 6. The Uralvagonzavod plant he operated officially announced his death on Wednesday.
Moscow has claimed the president's visit was tabled amid severe winter conditions that prevented travel. However, the Mail noted the plant had come under Putin's ire for failing to produce sufficient new tanks for the war in Ukraine.
Russia's Federal Security Service, the successor to the Soviet Union's KGB, has reportedly opened an "investigative group" into the two deaths, indicating suspicion the two might be connected.
Before taking over the tank manufacturer, Maslov was commander-in-chief of Russian ground forces from 2004 until 2008. Later, he served as the Kremlin's chief military representative to NATO in Brussels.
It comes several days out from the similarly mysterious death of 65-year-old Alexander Buzakov, the former general director of Admiralty Shipyards. His death, meanwhile, has not been given an official cause.
Buzakov's former company lauded him last weekend for overseeing "the preservation and strengthening of positions in the market of modern non-nuclear submarines, surface ships, and deep-sea equipment."
"The United Shipbuilding Corporation, the Admiralty Shipyards, and the entire national shipbuilding industry have suffered an irreparable loss, as Alexander Sergeevich Buzakov, Director General of the Admiralty Shipyards, passed away at the age of 66," the Admiralty Shipyards statement read.
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