RT head Margarita Simonyan says her husband is ‘clinically dead’ in coma

One of Russia’s most high-profile propagandists, RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, announced on Wednesday evening that her film director husband, Tigran Keosayan, was in a coma and had suffered “clinical death”.

Simonyan, an aggressive and outspoken supporter of the war in Ukraine whose public statements often make the headlines, said that Keosayan had been suffering from severe heart disease for many years and asked “those who love him” to pray for his recovery.

“Since reporters have already started calling, I’ll write it myself. My husband, Tigran Keosayan, has suffered clinical death and is in a coma. He has, as many people know, a long-standing heart condition,” Simonyan wrote.

Having survived heart attacks in 2008 and 2010, Keosayan, 59, was hospitalised at the end of December, Telegram channel Baza reported.

Keosayan, who has directed around 20 films over the past three decades, including The Crimean Bridge. Made with Love!, a 2018 propaganda piece, has been under EU, UK, Canadian and Australian sanctions since 2022 for his support of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Keosayan and Simonyan, who have been a couple since 2012, were married in March 2022 and have three children together.