Maxim Borodin, Russian Investigative Reporter, Dies in Fall

Maxim Borodin, a Russian investigative reporter, died Sunday after falling from his fifth-floor balcony on April 12 in Yekaterinburg, The Guardian reported.

Borodin, 32, who wrote for the Yekaterinburg-based website Novy Den, exposed a private  Russian military company along with investigating the country's prisons and corrupt officials in the Sverdlovsk region, per The Guardian.

Police are treating Borodin's death as a suicide or accident and have not opened a criminal case, the newspaper said.

At least 38 journalists have been murdered in Russia since 1992, the Committee to Protect Journalists said, per The Guardian.

"His work was very dangerous," Vyacheslav Bashkov, a local civil rights activist, told The Guardian on Monday. "He was one of the best."

A Sverdlovsk Oblast police spokesman said, according to Radio Free Europe, that Borodin's apartment was locked from the inside and there was no sign of forced entry. The spokesman added that the apartment's keys were found inside and there was not a suicide note.

Novy Den editor-in-chief Polina Rumyantseva said, per Radio Free Europe, that she did not believe Borodin committed suicide.

"We were able to visit the apartment of Maxim, together with the police and forensic experts on Friday, the intermediate conclusion is that Maxim fell out of the balcony of his apartment where he probably was smoking," Rumyantseva said, per CNN. "As Maxim had big plans for his personal life and career, there is nothing to support a verdict of suicide."

Bashkov wrote on Facebook April 15 that the journalist claimed his building had been surrounded by camouflage and face mask-wearing "security forces" and were waiting on a court order, Radio Free Europe reported.

Bashkov said that Borodin asked him to find a lawyer, the broadcaster wrote.

"(The) death of journalist Maxim Borodin in #Russia is of serious concern," Harlem Désir, the representative on freedom of the media for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, said on Twitter, per The Guardian. "I call on the authorities for a swift and thorough investigation."

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