MOSCOW, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Russian actor Alexei Devotchenko, an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was found dead in his Moscow apartment.
Although investigators told Russian media outlets there was no sign of violence and that an autopsy would be done, actor Stanislav Sadalsky wrote in a blog post that according to his information, his friend and colleague had been murdered. Some Russian websites speculated Devotchenko was drunk and died in a fall Wednesday, or that he was found surrounded by liquor bottles and prescription pills.
Devotchenko, 49, used many opportunities to criticize Putin and what he described as "Tsar-state stuff." A recent blog post denounced the Putin regime for "lies, its cover-ups, its legalized theft, its bribe-taking and its other triumphs." In 2010, he urged fellow actors to avoid working in "ultra-patriotic, propagandistic, chauvinistic, anti-Semitic, or pro-Stalinist feature films and television projects," and twice in 2011 rejected acting awards "received from Putin's hands."
He regularly participated in anti-Kremlin protests and in 2014 predicted the end of Putin's regime.
Devotchenko was also a stage and screen actor who performed with the Moscow Art Theater, on Russian television dramas and in a 2006 performance in London of the play King Lear.
