Oh gee golly I wonder what happened here: a Russian investigative journalist dies after falling from his fifth-floor flat.

Maxim Borodin was found badly injured by neighbours in Yekaterinburg and taken to hospital, where he later died.

Local officials said no suicide note was found but the incident was unlikely to be of a criminal nature.

However, a friend revealed Borodin had said his flat had been surrounded by security men a day earlier.

Total coincidence I’m sure. They were there to pick up cigarette butts.

Vyacheslav Bashkov described Borodin as a “principled, honest journalist” and said Borodin had contacted him at five o’clock in the morning on 11 April saying there was “someone with a weapon on his balcony and people in camouflage and masks on the staircase landing”.

Kids playing. Or a fashion shoot. Or people the landlord sent to touch up the paint.

In recent weeks, the journalist had written about Russian mercenaries known as the “Wagner Group” who were reportedly killed in Syria on 7 February in a confrontation with US forces.

Last week, the outgoing head of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, said that “a couple hundred” Russian mercenaries died in the clash in Deir al-Zour province. The mercenaries were apparently taking part in an attack by pro-Syrian government fighters on the headquarters of a US ally, the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Weeks later Russia admitted that several dozen Russian citizens had been either killed or wounded, but stressed they were not regular soldiers.

But it’s all just a big coincidence.