New Delhi: Russian energy executive Ivan Pechorin, 39, drowned to his death off the coast of Vladivostok on 10 September, becoming the latest oil and gas businessman to die under mysterious circumstances since January this year.
The managing director for the Corporation for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic allegedly fell of his luxury yacht near Cape Ignatyev in Vladivostok, a major Pacific port city in Russia. He was the ninth prominent Russian businessmen to have died by suicide or unexplained accidents this year. Reports said Pechorin worked under President Vladimir Putin modernizing aviation in eastern Russia and developing resources in the Arctic.
Earlier this year, the company’s 43-year-old general director Igor Nosov also died from a “stroke”.
BREAKING:
Another Russian energy boss has died.
Ivan Pechorin’s body has been found. He allegedly fell overboard from his luxury yacht near Vladivostok.
He was a top director at KRDV.
The company’s 43-year-old general director also died earlier this year from a “stroke”. pic.twitter.com/PtQPkJKAtY
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) September 13, 2022
Six of them were associated with Russia’s two largest energy companies. Four out of the six were linked to Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom or one of its subsidiaries. The other two were associated with Russia’s largest privately-owned oil and gas company, Lukoil.
Earlier this year, Lukoil had taken the public stance of speaking out against Russia’s war in Ukraine, called for sympathy for victims and for the end to the conflict.
String of unexplained deaths
Ravil Maganov, Chairman of Russian oil company Lukoil, died earlier this month. Maganov died after apparently falling out of a hospital window in Moscow where he was admitted.
The company confirmed Maganov’s death in a statement published on their website. Maganov “passed away following a severe illness,” Lukoil said, making no mention of a fall.
Some sources claimed he tripped and fell while smoking, stating a pack of cigarettes was found by the window.
Alexander Subbotin, Manager at Lukoil, was found dead in a basement near Moscow in May while performing an African shaman ritual. Reportedly, medics were called to treat an unconscious man suffering from heart failure and the police had opened a criminal investigation into the case.
Another top executive at Gazprom, Alexander Tyulakov, was found dead in his garage, on 25 February in the village of Leninsky near Leningrad. His death was declared to be a case of suicide.
In the same village, in the first of the deaths reported this year, Leonid Shulman, the head of transport at Gazprom Invest, was found dead in his cottage on 30 January 2022. A note was reportedly found at the scene and the death was being investigated as a suicide.
In April, two more Russian businessmen with links to Gazprom died in apparent murder-suicides.
Vladislav Avayev, the former vice-president of Gazprom Bank, was found dead with his wife and 18-year-old daughter in his apartment on 18 April. Avayev is said to have killed his family, following which he allegedly took his own life.
These deaths were being investigated as a murder-suicide.
Igor Volobuev, former vice president of Gazprombank, who recently left Russia for Ukraine, told CNN he did not believe Avayev killed himself. “I think he knew something and that he posed some sort of risk,” Volobuev said.
In another similar incident, Sergei Protosenya, former top executive and gas producer at Novatek (partly owned by Gazprom) was found dead along with his wife and daughter at a resort home near Barcelona.
The bodies of the two women showed signs of violence and were found inside the family’s luxury home, while Protosenya’s body was found in the garden outside. The case is being investigated as a double-murder and subsequent suicide as part of a domestic violence case.
Mikhail Watford, a Ukrainian-born Russian oil and gas billionaire, was found dead in his home in Surrey, England on 28 February.
Yuri Voronov, founder and CEO of Astra shipping containers servicing company (servicing Gazprom’s arctic containers), was also found dead in St. Petersburg. His body, found floating in a swimming pool, had a bullet wound.
In the trail of puzzling deaths, another Russian businessman, Vasily Melnikov, owner of medical supplies company MedStom, was found dead alongside his family in Nizhny Novgorod in Russia on 23 March. 43-year-old Melnikov, his wife, 41 and two children aged 4 and 10 were all stabbed.
The regional branch of the investigative committee said, “[Investigators] are considering several versions of what happened, including the murder of the children and wife by the head of the family, followed by self-inflicted death.”
Vlaydimir Lyakishek, a restaurant chain owner, was also shot dead.
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