After the chairman of the board of Russia's largest personal oil firm died in what Russian information companies cited as an unintended fall from a hospital window, questions have 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 widespread to be fully coincidental.
Initially, an announcement by his firm Lukoil stated 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.
Putin went to the identical hospital on Friday to put flowers beside the casket of former Soviet chief Mikhail Gorbachev, who died whereas receiving remedy on Tuesday.
Maganov appeared to have fallen from a sixth-story window, the stories stated. Some sources claimed he tripped and fell whereas smoking, stating a pack of cigarettes was discovered by the window. The information website RBK additionally stated police have been investigating the potential for suicide.
Lukoil was one of some Russian corporations to publicly name for an finish to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, calling in March for the “instant cessation of the armed battle”.
By the way, Maganov was not the primary Lukoil official to die beneath suspicious circumstances since Kremlin's full-scale aggression in opposition to its western neighbour started in late February.
A former high supervisor Aleksandr Subbotin was discovered useless within the basement of a residence in a Moscow suburb in Could.
Russian information stories stated the home belonged to a self-styled healer, Shaman Magua, who practised purification rites.
Magua testified that Subbotin got here to his home drunk and medicines and demanded that the healer, whose actual identify is Aleksei Pindurin, performs a therapeutic ritual for hangover signs.
Investigators stated the preliminary explanation for Subbotin's loss of life was decided to be coronary heart failure.
But, it's Ravil Maganov's demise that caught the eye of the press, having been the newest in a string of unintended self-defenestrations and different suspicious deaths of those that both profited from good relations with Putin or have been a thorn in his aspect -- or each.
Anti-war oligarchs die beneath unusual circumstances
Not less than one other six Russian oligarchs have died in unusual circumstances virtually because the outbreak of the battle in Ukraine. All had in widespread 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 imagine that these deaths could, in truth, 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 conflict.
Solely a month earlier than the outbreak of the battle in Ukraine, a high government 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 line with the police authorities, a suicide be aware was allegedly discovered subsequent to his physique, wherein he recounted his struggling after a leg harm -- 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 government of Gazproms's Company Safety, died at his house in the identical village as Shulman. In line with the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, his physique was discovered hanged within the storage.
The identical newspaper quoted an unnamed legislation 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 loss of life.
Considered one of 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 explanation for loss of life was decided as loss of life by hanging, however his spouse and kids, who have been at house on the time, have been unhurt. UK authorities have been treating Watford's loss of life as unexplained, however not suspicious.
It later emerged that Watford, generally known as Misha, had modified his surname from Tolstosheya after shifting to the UK in early 2000.
Homicide-suicides escalate out of the blue amongst Putin-friendly oligarchs?
In March, the our bodies of Russian billionaire Vasily Melnikov and his household have 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 corporations affected by Western sanctions.
In line 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 gear to Russia, was on the verge of chapter as a result of Western sanctions imposed in retaliation for the conflict in Ukraine.
The newest 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 members of the family on 19 April.
The previous head of the fuel large Novatek, with a private price of €400 million, was discovered hanged, together with these of his spouse and daughter, who have been stabbed to loss of life 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 mates have additionally come out in public to state that Protosenya is, in truth, 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 loss of life 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 legislation 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 loss of life 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 advised the newspaper they suspected he was an undercover officer with Russia's FSB.
Investigative outlet Bellingcat stated it used open-source information to determine the person as Kirill Zhalo, the son of Basic Alexey Zhalo, deputy director of the FSB's Second Service, accountable 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 have 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 conflict 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 loss of life as suspicious, the Washington-based Politico reported, however the case stays beneath investigation.
Rapoport grew to become wealthy whereas in Moscow earlier than falling out of favour with the Kremlin, largely as a result of his help for the opposition chief Alexei Navalny, in accordance with stories.
In 2017, Rapoport's then-business associate, Sergei Tkachenko, additionally fell to his loss of life from his Moscow condo.
Through the COVID-19 pandemic, no less than 4 well being care employees have fallen out of home windows in Russia, with just one surviving regardless of grave accidents.
Not less than three incidents of docs self-defenestrating from hospital home windows passed off over a two-week interval between April and Could 2020, with media stories claiming they'd protested working circumstances in the course of the worst wave of infections within the nation previous to the incidents.
In December 2020, a high Russian scientist creating a novel COVID-19 vaccine, Alexander Kagansky, was discovered useless after falling from his high-rise condo in St Petersburg.
In line with Russian retailers, police claimed Kagansky stabbed himself after which jumped to his loss of life.
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