Kiev: A son of ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich has drowned after a minivan he was driving plunged through ice on a Siberian lake, an aide to Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said.
Authorities in Russia, where Yanukovich has lived with most of his family since protests against his pro-Moscow policies forced him from office in February 2014, did not immediately confirm the death.
But Avakov aide Anton Herashchenko said on Facebook that Yanukovich’s younger son, also named Viktor, had died on Sunday in Lake Baikal.
The vehicle broke through the ice and tipped over onto the driver’s side. Five passengers survived and “four of them didn’t even get their feet wet,” Herashchenko said.
Viktor, 33, a racing car enthusiast who headed the Ukrainian Automobile Association when his father was in power, was not able to unbuckle his seat belt in time to get out, he added.
Nestor Shufrych, a Ukrainian parliament deputy from the Opposition Bloc and a former ally of Yanukovich, gave a similar account on Facebook.
In Moscow, the Kremlin declined to comment. “I do not have any information on the subject,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said. “I can neither deny nor confirm.”
