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Russian Cosmodrome builder Dmitry Savin found dead in Moscow

The former head of Russian state construction company Dalspetsstroy has been found dead in his Moscow home, apparently after a shooting himself in the head.

According to news agency Moskva, he was found on Sunday evening after the police were alerted and visited his home in the Vykhino-Zhulebino district of southeast Moscow.

A police statement said: "At the address indicated, in the yard of a private house, there was the body of an unemployed man born in 1964. He had a gunshot wound to the head. The fire came from a Browning carbine lying near the corpse. The weapon belonged to the deceased."

Dmitry Savin is best known for supervising the construction of the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia’s Siberian spaceport. He took over Dalspetsstroy in 2014 after his predecessor, Yuriy Khrizman, was accused of stealing more than $30m.

In March 2015 he moved down to became deputy head of the company. His replacement, Yury Volkodav, is currently under arrest on a charge of abusing his position.

Savin said he stepped down for health reasons, but Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s former deputy prime minister, said at the time that he was dismissed after trying to conceal a problem with non-payment of wages to the builders working on the Vostochny centre.

As GCR reported at the time, Rogozin tweeted that he had fired Savin because "he didn’t only hide the workers’ problems but also hired his wife, paying her a salary of 800,000 roubles a month".

Subsequently, Savin became Dalspetsstroy’s deputy director before leaving the company.

Image: The Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s far eastern Amur region (Dmitry Rogozin)

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