After the chairman of the board of Russia's largest non-public oil firm died in what Russian information businesses cited as an unintended fall from a hospital window, questions had been once more raised over whether or not suspicious deaths amongst Russian oligarchs and critics of President Vladimir Putin have grow to be all too frequent to be utterly coincidental.
Initially, an announcement by his firm Lukoil mentioned Ravil Maganov “handed away after a extreme sickness” on Thursday however didn't give additional particulars.
Russian information stories later acknowledged his physique was discovered on the grounds of Moscow's Central Scientific Hospital, the place Russia's political and enterprise elite are sometimes handled.
Maganov appeared to have fallen from a sixth-story window, the stories mentioned. Some sources claimed he tripped and fell whereas smoking, stating a pack of cigarettes was discovered by the window. The information website RBK additionally mentioned police had been investigating the potential for suicide.
Lukoil was one of some Russian firms to publicly name for an finish to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, calling in March for the “rapid cessation of the armed battle”.
By the way, Maganov was not the primary Lukoil official to die underneath suspicious circumstances since Kremlin's full-scale aggression in opposition to its western neighbour started in late February.
A former prime supervisor Aleksandr Subbotin was discovered useless within the basement of a residence in a Moscow suburb in Might.
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 home inebriated and medicines and demanded that the healer, whose actual title is Aleksei Pindurin, performs a therapeutic ritual for hangover signs.
Investigators mentioned the preliminary reason behind Subbotin's dying was decided to be coronary heart failure.
But, it's Ravil Maganov's demise that caught the eye of the press, having been the most recent in a string of unintended self-defenestrations and different suspicious deaths of those that both profited from good relations with Putin or had been a thorn in his facet -- or each.
Anti-war oligarchs die underneath unusual circumstances
A minimum of one other six Russian oligarchs have died in unusual circumstances nearly because the outbreak of the battle in Ukraine. All had in frequent 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 worldwide investigators, who're starting to consider that these deaths could, the truth is, have been staged suicides or assassinations as a result of their stance on the Kremlin's aggression in opposition to Ukraine or their hyperlinks to corruption within the Russian fuel firm Gazprom.
It began in St Petersburg within the run-up to the struggle.
Solely a month earlier than the outbreak of the battle in Ukraine, a prime govt of the fuel firm Gazprom was discovered useless in his cottage close to St Petersburg.
Leonid Shulman, 60, was discovered within the lavatory of the home with slashed wrists, native information reported, citing a supply.
In accordance with the police authorities, a suicide notice was allegedly discovered subsequent to his physique, through which he recounted his struggling after a leg damage -- which Gazprom claimed induced him to take a go away of absence.
The model has been questioned after the Warsaw Institue suppose tank acknowledged that Shulman, who was the top of the transport service at Gazprom Make investments, was concerned in a doable corruption case on the Russian fuel large.
The morning after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, Alexander Tyulyakov, 65, a senior govt of Gazproms's Company Safety, died at his house in the identical village as Shulman. In accordance with the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, his physique was discovered hanged within the storage.
The identical newspaper quoted an unnamed regulation enforcement supply as saying that Gazprom's personal safety unit arrived on the scene of the suicide similtaneously the police and was additionally investigating the dying.
One in all two deaths which have taken place overseas is that of Mikhail Watford, who lived along with his household within the UK. On 28 February, the Ukrainian-born 66-year-old oil and fuel magnate, who additionally constructed a property empire in London, was discovered useless at his house in Surrey.
Watford's reason behind dying was decided as dying by hanging, however his spouse and kids, who had been at house on the time, had been unhurt. UK authorities had been treating Watford's dying as unexplained, however not suspicious.
It later emerged that Watford, generally known as Misha, had modified his surname from Tolstosheya after transferring to the UK in early 2000.
Homicide-suicides escalate all of the sudden amongst Putin-friendly oligarchs?
In March, the our bodies of Russian billionaire Vasily Melnikov and his household had been present in his luxurious flat in Nizhny Novgorod, a metropolis in western Russia.
Melnikov had made his fortune working for one of many medical firms affected by Western sanctions.
In accordance with the Russian newspaper Kommersant, Melnikov, alongside along with his 41-year-old spouse and two younger kids, aged 10 and 4 respectively, died of stab wounds. The homicide weapon was allegedly discovered on the scene of the crime.
The newspaper reported that the oligarch had killed his household earlier than committing suicide, though neighbours and different kin disagreed with the official model.
Different media have claimed that Melnikov's firm, which imports medical tools to Russia, was on the verge of chapter as a result of Western sanctions imposed in retaliation for the struggle in Ukraine.
The most recent case has taken place in Spain, extra particularly in Lloret de Mar, the place Russian oligarch Sergei Protosenya, 55, was discovered useless together with two different relations on 19 April.
The previous head of the fuel large Novatek, with a private value of €400 million, was discovered hanged, together with these of his spouse and daughter, who had been stabbed to dying within the household villa.
What was initially labeled by the police as a double murder adopted by Protosenya's suicide was later categorically denied by his son.
A number of household buddies have additionally come out in public to state that Protosenya is, the truth is, the third sufferer of a "staged suicide" and that the oligarch would have been incapable of murdering his household.
The Catalan police are nonetheless actively investigating the case.
Only a day earlier than the dying of Protosenya and his household, the physique of Russian oligarch Vladislav Avayev was present in his Moscow flat, together with the our bodies of his spouse and 13-year-old daughter. His daughter Anastasia, 26, was the one who found the crime scene.
Russian state-owned information company TASS quoted a supply near regulation enforcement as saying that preliminary proof pointed to Avayev -- former advisor to Putin and former vice-president of Gazprombank -- killing his spouse and daughter after which committing suicide.
A pistol was discovered within the oligarch's hand, and the flat was locked from the within.
Gazprombank is Russia's third-largest financial institution and is related to Gazprom, the world's largest publicly traded pure fuel firm.
Self-defenestrations essentially the most suspicious
Maganov's dying on Thursday additionally follows the sample of outstanding Russians falling out of home windows to their deaths.
In October 2021, a Russian diplomat was discovered useless after he fell from a window of the Russian embassy in Berlin, Der Spiegel reported.
The unidentified man was a second secretary on the embassy, however German intelligence sources informed the newspaper they suspected he was an undercover officer with Russia's FSB.
Investigative outlet Bellingcat mentioned it used open-source information to determine the person as Kirill Zhalo, the son of Common Alexey Zhalo, deputy director of the FSB's Second Service, chargeable for coping with inner political threats for the Kremlin.
In December of the identical 12 months, the founding father of nationalist weblog Sputnik and Pogrom Yegor Prosvirnin died after falling out of a window of a Moscow condo constructing.
Prosvirnin's bare physique was discovered subsequent to a knife and a fuel canister after shouts and yelling had been heard from his condo, native media reported.
Prosvirnin, a right-wing activist, initially supported Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 however later grew to become a vocal critic of Putin, predicting a civil struggle in Russia and the collapse 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, was discovered useless in entrance of a luxurious condo constructing in Washington DC.
Police say they weren't treating Rapoport's dying as suspicious, the Washington-based Politico reported, however the case stays underneath investigation.
Rapoport grew to become wealthy whereas in Moscow earlier than falling out of favour with the Kremlin, principally as a result of his assist for the opposition chief Alexei Navalny, based on stories.
In 2017, Rapoport's then-business companion, Sergei Tkachenko, additionally fell to his dying from his Moscow condo.
Through the COVID-19 pandemic, at the very least 4 well being care staff have fallen out of home windows in Russia, with just one surviving regardless of grave accidents.
A minimum of three incidents of docs self-defenestrating from hospital home windows befell over a two-week interval between April and Might 2020, with media stories claiming that they had protested working circumstances in the course of the worst wave of infections within the nation previous to the incidents.
In December 2020, a prime Russian scientist growing a novel COVID-19 vaccine, Alexander Kagansky, was discovered useless after falling from his high-rise condo in St Petersburg.
In accordance with Russian retailers, police claimed Kagansky stabbed himself after which jumped to his dying.
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