Brothers Ivan and Stepan Zakharov, playing Spider-Man plunge to their deaths from 11th-floor Moscow apartment during Russia coronavirus lockdown.
Two young brothers, described as avid Spiderman fans have plunged 110ft to their deaths from an 11th-floor high rise apartment after being cooped up for five weeks during Russia’s coronavirus lockdown.
The pair – who were both talented dancers – fell around 25 seconds apart from their Moscow home in Russia, after ‘diving off’ the 11th story floor, local media reported.
The brothers, Ivan Zakharov, 10, and Stepan, seven, tragically died on the spot.
Mum Irina, 41, and sister Maria, 12, were in another room in the apartment when the tragedy happened the UK’s dailystar reports. Investigators suspect the brothers had possibly jumped out rather than fallen out as part of a game.
An investigation has been launched into the incident.
Schools has remained closed and the brothers had begun to ‘fool around’
Russia has been in coronavirus lockdown since March 28 with all schools closed and children not allowed to go out to local playgrounds.
Reported Moskovsky Komsomolets, ‘There were no traces of slipping from the windowsill. The scatter of bodies also confirms another version – the children fell not directly under the windows, but a little further away.’
The paper also reported, ‘Evidently the quarantined children began to fool around – they removed flower pots, opened a window and climbed onto a table. Their fingerprints were above the window. Perhaps they played Spiderman.’
10 minutes earlier the boys had told their mother they were playing together.
The boys’ father Yegor, 44, owner of a children’s clothes shop chain, was not at home at the time.
Ivan and Stepan both attended Todes, a famous Russian dance school.
The Russian Investigative Committee is probing the tragic case.
Tragedy mirroring national capitulation:
President Vladimir Putin recently extended the country’s coronavirus lockdown until May 11, and warned citizens the worst of the pandemic is still to come.
Russia has to date confirmed 145,268 cases of COVID-19 and 1,356 people dying from the deadly bug.
As some European countries start to gradually lift restrictions, Russia is now the European country registering the most new infections each day.
Residents in Moscow – the epicenter of the contagion – are being urged to stay home despite the onset of spring.
The economic fallout from a five-week lockdown, combined with record-low prices for oil – the backbone of the national economy – is taking its toll, as exasperated locals turn their attention to President Putin’s controversial (non) response amid Russia’s ongoing crises.
