Now pro-Kremlin editor dies

THE editor-in-chief of Vladimir Putin’s ‘favourite’ newspaper has been found dead on a business trip in Russia’s far east – making him the latest Kremlin stooge to die.

Vladimir Sungorkin, 68, of tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda and a close friend of the despot, died of ‘a stroke’ on Wednesday. According to the pro-Putin newspaper, he collapsed ‘suddenly’ after showing signs of ‘suffocation’. Several of Putin’s cronies have died in mysterious circumstances. None of the deaths has been treated as murder.