Rogue AI
A list of oligarchs and Putin critics found dead since Ukraine war
Ivan Pechorin, a top manager at the Corporation for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, was found dead in Vladivostok after allegedly falling off his luxury yacht and drowning near Cape Ignatyev in the Sea of Japan two days before, according to the local administration.
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Meanwhile, another aviation expert died under strange circumstances: the former head of the Moscow Aviation Institute
Anatoly Gerashchenko was pronounced dead after falling down "several sets of stairs" on Wednesday, according to a statement issued by the institute.
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In 2018, former deputy director of the Russian national air carrier Aeroflot
Nikolai Glushkov -- who famously claimed that about one-fourth of the company's employees were officers of one of the branches of the country's intelligence -- was found hanged in his home in New Malden, London.
Glushkov was a notable Kremlin critic and a close friend of the late oligarch
Boris Berezovsky, who was also found dead with a ligature around his neck in 2013.
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At least another eight Russian oligarchs have died in strange circumstances almost since the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine. All had in common close links to the Kremlin, immense wealth, a connection to Russian gas and an anti-war stance on Ukraine.
This has raised the suspicions of international investigators, who are beginning to believe that these deaths may, in fact, have been staged suicides or assassinations due to their stance on the Kremlin's aggression against Ukraine or their links to corruption in the Russian gas company Gazprom.
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Leonid Shulman, 60, was found in the bathroom of the house with slashed wrists, local news reported, citing a source.
According to the police authorities, a suicide note was allegedly found next to his body, in which he recounted his suffering after a leg injury -- which Gazprom claimed caused him to take a leave of absence.
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The morning after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February,
Alexander Tyulyakov, 65, a senior executive of Gazproms's Corporate Security, died at his home in the same village as Shulman. According to the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, his body was found hanged in the garage.
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One of two deaths that have taken place abroad is that of
Mikhail Watford, who lived with his family in the UK. On 28 February, the Ukrainian-born 66-year-old oil and gas magnate, who also built a property empire in London, was found dead at his home in Surrey.
Watford's cause of death was determined as death by hanging, but his wife and children, who were at home at the time, were unharmed.
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In March, the bodies of Russian billionaire
Vasily Melnikov and his family were found in his luxury flat in Nizhny Novgorod, a city in western Russia.
Melnikov had made his fortune working for one of the medical companies affected by Western sanctions.
According to the Russian newspaper Kommersant, Melnikov, along with his 41-year-old wife and two young children, aged 10 and 4 respectively, died of stab wounds. The murder weapon was allegedly found at the scene of the crime.
The newspaper reported that the oligarch had killed his family before committing suicide, although neighbours and other relatives disagreed with the official version.
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The latest case has taken place in Spain, more specifically in Lloret de Mar, where Russian oligarch
Sergei Protosenya, 55, was found dead along with two other family members on 19 April.
The former head of the gas giant Novatek, with a personal worth of €400 million, was found hanged, along with those of his wife and daughter, who were stabbed to death in the family villa.
What was initially classified by the police as a double homicide followed by Protosenya's suicide was later categorically denied by his son.