Belgian steel executive working for Russia's richest man falls to his death from Moscow balcony

Police sources are ruling out foul play, but suspicions remain

Bruno Charles de Cooman was vice-president for Novolipetsk Steel (Sergei Fadeichev/TASS)

A Belgian steel executive who worked for Russia’s richest man has been found dead on the pavement beneath his central Moscow home.

According to police sources, Bruno Charles de Cooman, 61, an employee of Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), returned to his ninth-floor apartment shortly before plunging to his death at approximately 3.50pm local time on Wednesday. He had left friends by the building entrance. They reportedly saw him fall out of a window.

Photographs taken at the scene show the dead Belgian’s body covered in a black bag. The crown of his head, his hands, grey suit and polished black shoes are still visible. His feet are still touching the grey walls of his building, the famous House on the Embankment complex, located across the Moscow river from the Kremlin.

In a statement confirming his death, Novolipetsk Steel expressed condolences and said Mr De Cooman had “made an invaluable contribution to the development of metallurgy worldwide.”

During the year-long period Mr De Cooman worked for the company, Novolipetsk Steel recorded record earnings, helping to make its owner, Vladimir Lisin, Russia’s richest man. That title completed a remarkable journey for the oligarch, who started out as an electrical fitter in a Siberian coal mine in the 1970s. In addition to controlling one of the world’s largest steel companies, Mr Lisin, 62, also heads the country’s largest freight rail operator.

Before his appointment as vice-president in 2017, Mr De Cooman worked as an academic, specialising in materials science and engineering. Novolipetsk Steel had created a new position for him, placing him in charge of research and development.

According to Mash, a Telegram media channel understood to work closely with Russian law enforcement, Mr De Cooman’s death is not being treated as suspicious. No one was with the executive at the time of his death, the publication claims.

At the same time, it adds, the Belgian was sober and had not talked of suicide in the time leading up to the incident.

Even in the absence of evidence of foul play, the news that an influential businessman has plunged to his death will be met with suspicion.

In the last few years, a spate of critical journalists, businessmen and politicians have met their end by falling from balconies. Suicide rates are high, and structural failure is not impossible, but the law of probability would suggest that some of these deaths involved external actors.

Mr De Cooman’s death also continues a run of bad luck associated with the House on the Embankment building. As the complex that housed leading Soviet functionaries, it had one of the highest rates of arrest and execution in Russia as the Communist Party turned on itself during Stalin’s purges in the 1930s. As many as 40 “suicides” have been recorded during the building’s tumultuous 90-year history.

Today, roomy apartments, a central location and remarkable vistas of the Kremlin make it one of Moscow’s most desirable addresses.