On April 18, Awayev, the former vice president of Gazprombank, was found dead with his wife and daughter in a Moscow apartment. The authorities presumed that Awayev committed suicide after killing himself.Flip twitter
Since the beginning of this year, there have been news of the unfortunate deaths of 6 Russian businessmen in succession. It is reported that 4 of them are related to the state-run Russian gas industry company (Gazprom), and several are judged as suicide by investigators. The death of the Russian oligarch may be related to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intention to purge his inner circle before launching a hunt for the rich.
According to a report by CNN, Gazprom’s transportation director Leonid Shulman was found dead in a holiday hut near Leningrad on January 30. A suicide note was left at the scene. After an investigation, the authorities said the cause of death was suicide. .
And just one month on February 25, the second day after Russia invaded Ukraine, another Gazprom executive, Alexander Tyulakov, died in the same village. Suspected of being beaten and leaving a suicide note, the authorities concluded that he committed suicide.
In addition, Mikhail Watford, a Russian-born tycoon who was born in Ukraine, was found lying down in his garage in the UK on February 28. Police said they believed that Watford may have been included in the assassination list, but detailed The case is still under investigation. “His mental state was affected by the situation in Ukraine, and this time of death is certainly not a coincidence with the Ukrainian invasion,” said a family friend.
Then on March 23, the Russian businessman Vasily Melnikov and his wife and their two underage sons were all killed. According to the investigation, they all died of stab wounds. After stabbing his wife and children to death, he committed suicide. According to reports, Melnikov is the owner of the medical equipment company Medstom, which has long imported medical equipment to Russia, but after the outbreak of the Ukraine-Russian war, the company was on the verge of collapse due to Western sanctions.
On April 18, Vladislav Avayev, a former Putin government official and former vice president of Gazprom, was found dead in his apartment in Moscow. His wife and daughter were shot and killed. It was Avaev who committed suicide after shooting his wife and children.
According to a former vice president, Igor Volobuev, told CNN that he does not believe that Avaev will commit suicide because his job requires negotiating with private banks, dealing with distinguished VIP customers, and he is in charge of huge amounts of money . As for why he committed suicide, “I think he knew something and there was some kind of risk because of it.”
The day after the Avayev case, Sergey Protosenya, a former director of the Novatek Gas Group jointly owned by Gazprom, took his wife and daughter to Spain for a vacation. Protosenya was found hanged in the courtyard of the mansion. The wife and daughter lay on the bed in the room with multiple marks of being slashed and stabbed with axe. The police judged at the time that it may be that Protosenya killed his wife and daughter before he chose to commit suicide, but no blood was found on Protosenya.
Protosenya’s son, who was in France at the time, said that he was full of doubts about the direction of the police investigation and believed that his father was murdered, and stressed that his father had always loved his mother and sister and would never do anything to harm them. .