Russian lawmaker who called for an end to Ukraine war injured in mysterious circumstances, reports say

• Russian lawmaker Anatoly Karpov received serious head injuries outside the State Duma, per multiple reports.
• In April, Karpov said he hoped the Ukraine-Russia war would end soon.

A top Russian lawmaker who has called for an end to the war in Ukraine suffered serious head injuries outside Moscow's State Duma and was placed in an artificial coma, according to multiple reports.

State-controlled outlet RIA Novosti reported that State Duma Deputy Anatoly Karpov, 71, accidentally fell and was taken to the hospital late on October 29, citing a source familiar with the situation.

However, there have been varying and contradictory accounts of what happened to Karpov, who is also a former chess grandmaster.

On Monday, Andrei Kovalyov, chair of the All-Russian Movement of Entrepreneurs, suggested it was the work of an unknown attacker. He wrote on Telegram: "I hope the scoundrel will be found."

But Karpov's daughter, Sofya, said that it was an accident, news channel Mash reported.

Karpov's spokesperson Albert Stepanyan denied he had been injured at all, saying: "There was no attack ... there are no injuries," state media outlet TASS reported.

Subsequent reporting suggested Karpov had serious injuries.

He was taken to the neurocritical care unit at the Sklifosovsky Institute in Moscow with a fractured femur and severe head injuries, per RIA Novosti. As of Wednesday he was doing well but still in the hospital, TVzvezda reported.

According to Mash, Karpov was put in an artificial coma after he was diagnosed with a brain contusion and blood hemorrhaging.

Insider was unable to independently verify the reports.

Karpov is considered a loyalist of President Vladimir Putin, but made remarks on a Kazakh TV station in April calling for an end to the war in Ukraine "so that peaceful people would stop dying," he said, according to a translation by the MailOnline.

"In the end ordinary people are the victims," he continued. "Ordinary people fight, politicians and generals decide, and ordinary people fight, civilians die."

Karpov's injuries are the latest in a string of untoward events surrounding high-profile Russians. So far in 2022, more than a dozen oligarchs and top executives — especially those connected to the country's energy industries — have died in extraordinary ways, although there is no formal evidence connecting the events.

The deaths have been attributed by officials variously as suspected suicides and murder-suicides, accidental falls, heart attacks and strokes, and freak accidents such as falling off a boat or being swept out to sea.