After the chairman of the board of Russia’s greatest non-public oil corporate died in what Russian information companies cited as an unintended fall from a sanatorium window, questions have been once more raised over whether or not suspicious deaths amongst Russian oligarchs and critics of President Vladimir Putin have change into all too commonplace to be utterly coincidental.
Initially, a observation by way of his corporate Lukoil mentioned Ravil Maganov “passed away after a severe illness” on Thursday however didn’t give additional main points.
Russian information stories later said his frame used to be discovered at the grounds of Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital, the place Russia’s political and enterprise elite are incessantly handled.
Putin went to the similar sanatorium on Friday to put vegetation beside the casket of former Soviet chief Mikhail Gorbachev, who died whilst receiving remedy on Tuesday.
Maganov looked as if it would have fallen from a sixth-story window, the stories mentioned. Some resources claimed he tripped and fell whilst smoking, declaring a pack of cigarettes used to be discovered by way of the window. The information web page RBK additionally mentioned police have been investigating the opportunity of suicide.
Lukoil used to be considered one of a couple of Russian corporations to publicly name for an finish to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, calling in March for the “immediate cessation of the armed conflict”.
Incidentally, Maganov used to be no longer the primary Lukoil legit to die below suspicious cases since Kremlin’s full-scale aggression towards its western neighbour started in overdue February.
A former most sensible supervisor Aleksandr Subbotin used to be discovered useless within the basement of a place of dwelling in a Moscow suburb in May.
Russian information stories mentioned the home belonged to a self-styled healer, Shaman Magua, who practised purification rites.
Magua testified that Subbotin got here to his area inebriated and medication and demanded that the healer, whose actual title is Aleksei Pindurin, plays a therapeutic ritual for hangover signs.
Investigators mentioned the initial reason for Subbotin’s demise used to be made up our minds to be middle failure.
Yet, it’s Ravil Maganov’s death that stuck the eye of the clicking, having been the most recent in a string of unintended self-defenestrations and different suspicious deaths of those that both profited from just right members of the family with Putin or have been a thorn in his facet — or each.
Anti-war oligarchs die below bizarre cases
At least every other six Russian oligarchs have died in bizarre cases virtually for the reason that outbreak of the struggle in Ukraine. All had in commonplace shut hyperlinks to the Kremlin, immense wealth, a connection to Russian fuel and an anti-war stance on Ukraine.
This has raised the suspicions of world investigators, who’re starting to consider that those deaths would possibly, in reality, had been staged suicides or assassinations because of their stance at the Kremlin’s aggression towards Ukraine or their hyperlinks to corruption within the Russian fuel corporate Gazprom.
It all began in St Petersburg within the run-up to the warfare.
Only a month earlier than the outbreak of the struggle in Ukraine, a most sensible government of the fuel corporate Gazprom used to be discovered useless in his cottage close to St Petersburg.
Leonid Shulman, 60, used to be present in the toilet of the home with slashed wrists, native information reported, bringing up a supply.
According to the police government, a suicide word used to be allegedly discovered subsequent to his frame, through which he recounted his struggling after a leg damage — which Gazprom claimed brought about him to take a go away of absence.
The model has been puzzled after the Warsaw Institue suppose tank said that Shulman, who used to be the pinnacle of the delivery provider at Gazprom Invest, used to be serious about a conceivable corruption case on the Russian fuel massive.
The morning after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, Alexander Tyulyakov, 65, a senior government of Gazproms’s Corporate Security, died at his house in the similar village as Shulman. According to the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, his frame used to be discovered hanged within the storage.
The identical newspaper quoted an unnamed regulation enforcement supply as announcing that Gazprom’s personal safety unit arrived on the scene of the suicide concurrently the police and used to be additionally investigating the demise.
One of 2 deaths that experience taken position in another country is that of Mikhail Watford, who lived along with his circle of relatives in the United Kingdom. On 28 February, the Ukrainian-born 66-year-old oil and fuel wealthy person, who additionally constructed a belongings empire in London, used to be discovered useless at his house in Surrey.
Watford’s reason for demise used to be made up our minds as demise by way of placing, however his spouse and youngsters, who have been at house on the time, have been unhurt. UK government have been treating Watford’s demise as unexplained, however no longer suspicious.
It later emerged that Watford, often known as Misha, had modified his surname from Tolstosheya after shifting to the United Kingdom in early 2000.
Murder-suicides escalate all of sudden amongst Putin-friendly oligarchs?
In March, the our bodies of Russian billionaire Vasily Melnikov and his circle of relatives have been present in his luxurious flat in Nizhny Novgorod, a town in western Russia.
Melnikov had made his fortune operating for one of the crucial scientific corporations suffering from Western sanctions.
According to the Russian newspaper Kommersant, Melnikov, in conjunction with his 41-year-old spouse and two babies, elderly 10 and four respectively, died of stab wounds. The homicide weapon used to be allegedly discovered on the scene of the crime.
The newspaper reported that the oligarch had killed his circle of relatives earlier than committing suicide, even supposing neighbours and different family members disagreed with the legit model.
Other media have claimed that Melnikov’s corporate, which imports scientific apparatus to Russia, used to be at the verge of chapter because of Western sanctions imposed in retaliation for the warfare in Ukraine.
The newest case has taken position in Spain, extra particularly in Lloret de Mar, the place Russian oligarch Sergei Protosenya, 55, used to be discovered useless in conjunction with two different members of the family on 19 April.
The former head of the fuel massive Novatek, with a non-public value of €400 million, used to be discovered hanged, in conjunction with the ones of his spouse and daughter, who have been stabbed to demise within the circle of relatives villa.
What used to be first of all categorised by way of the police as a double murder adopted by way of Protosenya’s suicide used to be later categorically denied by way of his son.
Several circle of relatives buddies have additionally pop out in public to state that Protosenya is, in reality, the 0.33 sufferer of a “staged suicide” and that the oligarch would had been incapable of murdering his circle of relatives.
The Catalan police are nonetheless actively investigating the case.
Just an afternoon earlier than the demise of Protosenya and his circle of relatives, the frame of Russian oligarch Vladislav Avayev used to be present in his Moscow flat, in conjunction with the our bodies of his spouse and 13-year-old daughter. His daughter Anastasia, 26, used to be the person who found out the crime scene.
Russian state-owned information company TASS quoted a supply with regards to regulation enforcement as announcing that initial proof pointed to Avayev — former marketing consultant to Putin and previous vice-president of Gazprombank — killing his spouse and daughter after which committing suicide.
A pistol used to be discovered within the oligarch’s hand, and the flat used to be locked from the interior.
Gazprombank is Russia’s third-largest financial institution and is related to Gazprom, the arena’s greatest publicly traded herbal fuel corporate.
Self-defenestrations probably the most suspicious
Maganov’s demise on Thursday additionally follows the development of outstanding Russians falling out of home windows to their deaths.
In October 2021, a Russian diplomat used to be discovered useless after he fell from a window of the Russian embassy in Berlin, Der Spiegel reported.
The unidentified guy used to be a 2d secretary on the embassy, however German intelligence resources instructed the newspaper they suspected he used to be an undercover officer with Russia’s FSB.
Investigative outlet Bellingcat mentioned it used open-source knowledge to spot the person as Kirill Zhalo, the son of General Alexey Zhalo, deputy director of the FSB’s Second Service, liable for coping with inner political threats for the Kremlin.
In December of the similar yr, the founding father of nationalist weblog Sputnik and Pogrom Yegor Prosvirnin died after falling out of a window of a Moscow condominium development.
Prosvirnin’s bare frame used to be discovered subsequent to a knife and a fuel canister after shouts and yelling have been heard from his condominium, native media reported.
Prosvirnin, a right-wing activist, initially supported Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 however later become a vocal critic of Putin, predicting a civil warfare in Russia and the cave in of the Russian Federation.
And on 14 August, Dan Rapoport, Latvian-American funding banker and outspoken Putin critic who had simply left Ukraine after the Russian invasion, used to be discovered useless in entrance of a luxurious condominium development in Washington DC.
Police say they weren’t treating Rapoport’s demise as suspicious, the Washington-based Politico reported, however the case stays below investigation.
Rapoport become wealthy whilst in Moscow earlier than falling out of favour with the Kremlin, most commonly because of his enhance for the opposition chief Alexei Navalny, consistent with stories.
In 2017, Rapoport’s then-business spouse, Sergei Tkachenko, additionally fell to his demise from his Moscow condominium.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, a minimum of 4 well being care staff have fallen out of home windows in Russia, with just one surviving in spite of grave accidents.
At least 3 incidents of docs self-defenestrating from sanatorium home windows came about over a two-week duration between April and May 2020, with media stories claiming that they had protested operating prerequisites right through the worst wave of infections within the nation previous to the incidents.
In December 2020, a most sensible Russian scientist growing a unique COVID-19 vaccine, Alexander Kagansky, used to be discovered useless after falling from his high-rise condominium in St Petersburg.
According to Russian retailers, police claimed Kagansky stabbed himself after which jumped to his demise.
