After the chairman of the board of Russia’s biggest non-public oil corporate died in what Russian information companies cited as an unintentional fall from a health facility window, questions had been once more raised over whether or not suspicious deaths amongst Russian oligarchs and critics of President Vladimir Putin have turn into all too commonplace to be totally coincidental.
Initially, a commentary 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 studies later mentioned his frame used to be discovered at the grounds of Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital, the place Russia’s political and enterprise elite are ceaselessly handled.
Maganov seemed to have fallen from a sixth-story window, the studies mentioned. Some resources claimed he tripped and fell whilst smoking, mentioning a pack of cigarettes used to be discovered by way of the window. The information web site RBK additionally mentioned police had been investigating the potential for 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 professional to die below suspicious cases since Kremlin’s full-scale aggression towards its western neighbour started in past due February.
A former best supervisor Aleksandr Subbotin used to be discovered lifeless within the basement of a place of dwelling in a Moscow suburb in May.
Russian information studies mentioned the home belonged to a self-styled healer, Shaman Magua, who practised purification rites.
Magua testified that Subbotin got here to his space drunk 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 loss of life used to be decided to be center failure.
Yet, it’s Ravil Maganov’s death that stuck the eye of the clicking, having been the most recent in a string of unintentional self-defenestrations and different suspicious deaths of those that both profited from excellent members of the family with Putin or had been a thorn in his aspect — or each.
Anti-war oligarchs die below odd cases
At least every other six Russian oligarchs have died in odd cases nearly because the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. All had in commonplace shut hyperlinks to the Kremlin, immense wealth, a connection to Russian gasoline and an anti-war stance on Ukraine.
This has raised the suspicions of world investigators, who’re starting to consider that those deaths might, actually, 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 gasoline corporate Gazprom.
It all began in St Petersburg within the run-up to the battle.
Only a month prior to the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, a best government of the gasoline corporate Gazprom used to be discovered lifeless 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 notice 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 mentioned that Shulman, who used to be the pinnacle of the shipping carrier at Gazprom Invest, used to be considering a conceivable corruption case on the Russian gasoline large.
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 loss of life.
One of 2 deaths that experience taken position in a foreign 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 gasoline rich person, who additionally constructed a belongings empire in London, used to be discovered lifeless at his house in Surrey.
Watford’s reason for loss of life used to be decided as loss of life by way of placing, however his spouse and youngsters, who had been at house on the time, had been unhurt. UK government had been treating Watford’s loss of life as unexplained, however no longer suspicious.
It later emerged that Watford, repeatedly known as Misha, had modified his surname from Tolstosheya after shifting to the United Kingdom in early 2000.
Murder-suicides escalate unexpectedly amongst Putin-friendly oligarchs?
In March, the our bodies of Russian billionaire Vasily Melnikov and his circle of relatives had been present in his luxurious flat in Nizhny Novgorod, a town in western Russia.
Melnikov had made his fortune operating for some of the clinical corporations suffering from Western sanctions.
According to the Russian newspaper Kommersant, Melnikov, together 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 prior to committing suicide, even supposing neighbours and different kinfolk disagreed with the professional model.
Other media have claimed that Melnikov’s corporate, which imports clinical apparatus to Russia, used to be at the verge of chapter because of Western sanctions imposed in retaliation for the battle in Ukraine.
The newest case has taken position in Spain, extra in particular in Lloret de Mar, the place Russian oligarch Sergei Protosenya, 55, used to be discovered lifeless together with two different members of the family on 19 April.
The former head of the gasoline large Novatek, with a private value of €400 million, used to be discovered hanged, together with the ones of his spouse and daughter, who had been stabbed to loss of life within the circle of relatives villa.
What used to be to start with categorized 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, actually, 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 prior to the loss of life of Protosenya and his circle of relatives, the frame of Russian oligarch Vladislav Avayev used to be present in his Moscow flat, together with the our bodies of his spouse and 13-year-old daughter. His daughter Anastasia, 26, used to be the one that found out the crime scene.
Russian state-owned information company TASS quoted a supply as regards to regulation enforcement as announcing that initial proof pointed to Avayev — former guide 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 biggest publicly traded herbal gasoline corporate.
Self-defenestrations essentially the most suspicious
Maganov’s loss of life on Thursday additionally follows the trend of distinguished Russians falling out of home windows to their deaths.
In October 2021, a Russian diplomat used to be discovered lifeless after he fell from a window of the Russian embassy in Berlin, Der Spiegel reported.
The unidentified guy used to be a 2nd secretary on the embassy, however German intelligence resources advised 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, accountable 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 condo construction.
Prosvirnin’s bare frame used to be discovered subsequent to a knife and a gasoline canister after shouts and yelling had been heard from his condo, native media reported.
Prosvirnin, a right-wing activist, at the start supported Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 however later was a vocal critic of Putin, predicting a civil battle 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 lifeless in entrance of a luxurious condo construction in Washington DC.
Police say they weren’t treating Rapoport’s loss of life as suspicious, the Washington-based Politico reported, however the case stays below investigation.
Rapoport was wealthy whilst in Moscow prior to falling out of favour with the Kremlin, most commonly because of his strengthen for the opposition chief Alexei Navalny, in line with studies.
In 2017, Rapoport’s then-business spouse, Sergei Tkachenko, additionally fell to his loss of life from his Moscow condo.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, no less than 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 medical doctors self-defenestrating from health facility home windows happened over a two-week length between April and May 2020, with media studies claiming they’d protested operating prerequisites throughout the worst wave of infections within the nation previous to the incidents.
In December 2020, a best Russian scientist growing a unique COVID-19 vaccine, Alexander Kagansky, used to be discovered lifeless after falling from his high-rise condo in St Petersburg.
According to Russian shops, police claimed Kagansky stabbed himself after which jumped to his loss of life.
