Alexei Devotchenko: actor who criticised Putin found dead 'in a pool of blood'

Alexei Devotchenko, a respected Russian actor and vociferous critic of president Vladimir Putin was found dead at his home in Moscow on Wednesday evening.

According to police reports, the circumstances of Devotchenko's death would not become clear until a full autopsy has been carried out, but the death is being treated as "suspicious," the Daily Telegraph reports. "There is reason to suppose that the artist’s death is of a criminal character," said one law enforcement official.

Some reports said that the actor, 49, had been found in a pool of blood inside his apartment, but others said his body was discovered outside his home.

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One Russian tabloid newspaper, LifeNews, wrote that Devotchenko had injured himself while intoxicated by punching a glass cabinet in a drunken rage.

Police found blood, empty vodka bottles, shards of glass and Phenazepam, a drug used to treat epilepsy, when they searched the actor’s apartment, LifeNews reported.

But fellow actor Stanislav Sadalsky said in a blog post that according to his sources, Devotchenko had been murdered.

In 2011, Devotchenko returned two state-sponsored acting awards, because he was "ashamed" they had been "received from Putin’s hands". He wrote in a blog post "I've had enough of all this tsar-state stuff, with its lies, its cover-ups, its legalised theft, its bribe-taking and its other triumphs."

Devotchenko had previously urged his fellow actors to refuse to take part in "ultra-patriotic, propagandistic, chauvinistic, anti-Semitic, or pro-Stalinist feature films and television projects" as well as "agitprop documentaries".

The actor also took part in anti-Putin demonstrations in 2011-2012, continuing to protest even when most of the demonstrators had drifted away following a government crackdown, according to The Guardian.