A journalist who fled the Russian Federation because he feared for his life died in Thailand

In Thailand, at the age of 65, the editor-in-chief of the Maritime Bulletin, Mikhail Voytenko, who in 2009 was forced to leave Russia urgently due to fear for his life, died. The preliminary cause of death is a heart attack, there is no official confirmation of the diagnosis and details of what happened yet.

Voytenko is a professional sailor, one of the leading Russian experts on sea transportation. In 2009, he was the first to report the disappearance of the Arctic Sea dry cargo ship with 15 crew members from Russia on board, which, as a number of mass media wrote later, was probably transporting contraband weapons with the sanction of the Russian authorities.

During the month, the dry cargo was searched by the law enforcement agencies of several countries, as a result, it was found, intact and without casualties, 300 miles from the islands of Cape Verde. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia then declared that the Arctic Sea vessel “was never lost and its location was always known.”

Soon after that, Mikhail Voytenko reported that some influential people in Russia advised him to “get out of the country”, because “above” is not happy with the fact that he brought the topic of the Arctic Sea dry cargo into the public domain. That’s how Voytenko ended up in Thailand.

The mass media note that already in exile, Voytenko signed the petition “Putin must leave” and sharply condemned the invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine.