Russian colonel involved in Putin's mobilization campaign found dead in office, reports say

• A Russian colonel was found dead in his office on Thursday, according to multiple reports.
• Vadim Boyko, who ran a naval college, was found with at least one gunshot wound, the reports said.

A Russian colonel involved in President Vladimir Putin's mobilization campaign was found dead in his office, multiple reports say.

Vadim Boyko, the deputy director of the Vladivostok Pacific Naval College, was found with a gunshot wound to the temple on Wednesday, according to the local newspaper Dalnevostochnye Vedomosti.

His death was reported too by Vladimir Oschenko, the editor of a local television station. Oschenko claimed too, without providing evidence, that Boyko died by suicide.

"When officers begin to shoot themselves, something's amiss with the country and state service," Oschenko wrote on Facebook.

The independent Russian media outlet Baza challenged the reports of suicide, reporting instead that Boyko was found with multiple gunshot wounds to the chest.

The outlet, which cited unnamed sources, also said that an on-duty officer heard five shots from the deputy's office before they found him dead. There was no suicide note, the outlet said.

Insider was unable to independently verify these reports. A spokesperson for the naval college did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Boyko was responsible for working with Russian soldiers who were drafted under Putin's partial mobilization order in September, Baza reported.

He is the latest Russian senior figure to have died in mysterious circumstances since the country's invasion of Ukraine earlier this year.

Last month, a military commissar for the eastern Primorysky region was found dead, with local authorities saying that his "heart stopped."