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A mysterious and sudden new wave of deaths of Russian oligarchs - voila! news

2023-01-16T22:16:20.132Z


Meet "Sudden Russian Death Syndrome" - a new term describing a series of mysterious deaths of Russian oligarchs, some members of Putin's inner circle and some his opponents


Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a New Year's speech at the headquarters of the Southern Military District in Rostov on the Don (Reuters)

It may sound strange but you should be familiar with the term "Sudden Russian Death Syndrome", which was coined after a new wave of mysterious deaths of senior Russian oligarchs in the past year.



In the Australian investigative program A current affair they reported that Russian citizens are falling dead one by one - and the thing they all have in common is that they are very powerful and rich.



The nickname "oligarchs" was applied to a group of middle-class businessmen who made their fortune after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

For the most part, they bought the properties of the power that was then the second largest in the world at the price of land, properties whose real value was much higher than their price.

The "oligarchs" reversed the equation that had ruled until then, according to which a person would work according to his ability and receive according to his needs - they worked a little and received a lot.

Today the oligarchs are billionaires and control the wealth of the Russian state and often have close ties to President Vladimir Putin.

CNN reports: Mysterious circumstances surrounding the deaths of Russian tycoons

Bill Browder was a former investor in Russia and since his team exposed the corruption they faced there, he has been investigating the country for years.

"There's an epidemic of murder going on these days," Browder said.

"The message that these murders send is - that when someone comes to you, asks you for money and you refuse - you can be almost certain that you and maybe your family members will also be murdered."



No less than 23 oligarchs have died in the last 12 months and in some cases their entire family was also killed.

Just two weeks ago, Pavel Antov, a politician and oligarch who made his fortune from the production of sausages, was found dead in India after mysteriously falling from a balcony while traveling with an associate - who also died of a "heart attack" several days earlier.

According to the BBC, last summer Anton denied criticizing the war in Ukraine after a message to that effect was reported on his WhatsApp account.

According to the reports, Antov referred to a missile attack on a residential neighborhood in Kiev and said: "It is very difficult to call all of this anything but terrorism."




Walking a tightrope: the girls of the oligarchs give up their bikinis in favor of a protest against Putin


It doesn't just look expensive: the big secrets of the oligarchs

At least 23 oligarchs were killed in mysterious circumstances in the last year (photo: screenshot, (A Current Affair))

The list of the dead in the last year - and the circumstances of their death

  • Leonid Shulman, the transport manager of Gazprom, Russia's largest energy company, was found dead on January 30, 2022 in the bathroom of a residence in the Leningrad region, with a suicide note found next to his body.

  • Igor Nosov, CEO of the Russian Far East and Arctic Development Company (KRDV) and former deputy governor of Nizhny Novgorod, died on February 8, 2022 in Moscow, reportedly of a stroke.

  • Alexander Tyulkov, Deputy General Director of the Unified Settlement Center of Gazprom, was found dead on February 25, 2022 in the garage of a residence in St. Petersburg, with a suicide note on his body.

  • Mikhail Watford, a successful businessman was found dead on February 28, 2022 in the garage of a residence in Surrey, England.

    British authorities found no evidence of a crime.

  • Vasily Melnikov, CEO and owner of Medstorm, a medical technology company, was found dead on March 3, 2022 in an apartment in Nizhny Novgorod with the bodies of his wife and two sons by his side.

  • Vladislav Aviv, former vice president of Gazprombank, one of the country's largest private banks, was found dead on April 15, 2022 in an apartment in Moscow, with his wife and 13-year-old daughter dead by his side.

  • Sergei Protosnia, former vice chairman of Novatek, Russia's second largest natural gas producer, was found hanging from a railing on April 19, 2022 in the garden of a residence in the Spanish resort town of Yorte de Mar. His wife and daughter were found dead in their beds with ax and stab wounds.

  • Andrey Krukovsky, the general manager of Estosduk Krasnaya Polyana, a ski resort owned by Gazprom, was found dead on May 1, 2022 under a cliff near the Ahipsa Fortress in Sochi, when he reportedly "fell off the cliff" while walking.

  • Alexander Subbotin, a member of the board of directors of the energy company Lukoil, was found dead on May 8, 2022 in the basement of a Jamaican shaman's house in Moscow.

    He reportedly died of a "drug-induced heart attack" during a shamanic ritual, although critics claim "toad poison" was found in his body.

  • Yuri Voronov, CEO of Astra Shipping, a subcontractor of Gazprom, was found dead on July 4, 2022, in the swimming pool of a residence in the Leningrad region with gunshot wounds to the head, a gun was found next to his body.

  • Dan Rappaport, a Latvian businessman who has often criticized Putin, was found dead in the street on August 14, 2022 in Washington, after apparently falling from the high-rise apartment building where he lived.

  • Ravil Magnov, the chairman of the energy company Lukoil, died on September 1, 2022, under the window of the Moscow Kremlin Hospital. He was reportedly hospitalized for heart problems and depression, then "fell out of the window."

  • Ivan Pechorin, the aviation director of the Russian Far East and Arctic Development Company (KRDV), was found dead on September 10 on the beach in Bargovi, 160 km from Vladivostok. His body was found two days after he allegedly fell off his boat.

  • Vladimir Songorkin, editor-in-chief of Komsomolskaya Pravda died on September 14, 2022 in Khabarovsk Oblast, after reportedly having a seizure and choking to death on his way to lunch.

  • Anatoly Gerchenko, former head of the Moscow Aviation Institute, was found dead on September 21, 2022. He reportedly fell down a flight of stairs inside the institute.

  • Pavel Pechelnikov, director of Digital Logistics - a subsidiary of the Russian Railways, was found dead on September 28 on the balcony of his apartment in Moscow, after apparently shooting himself.

  • Nikolai Petronin, Deputy State Duma of the Russian Federation, died on October 12, 2022 in a hospital in Moscow apparently from complications of the Corona disease.

  • Nikolai Mushchian, co-founder of MakerDAO, a cryptocurrency company, died on October 28, 2022 in Ashford Beach, Puerto Rico, United States.

    He drowned hours after tweeting that he was afraid the CIA or the Mossad were going to kill him.

  • Vyacheslav Taran, co-founder of Libertex, a cryptocurrency company that is also involved in the foreign exchange market, died on November 29, 2022 in the French Riviera in a helicopter crash that took off from Switzerland.

  • Grigory Kuchenov, the creative director of Agima, an IT company, died on December 7, 2022 in Nizhny Novgorod.

    According to reports, he fell to his death from his balcony while investigative committee representatives executed a search warrant on his apartment.

  • Dmitry Zelnov, co-founder of the construction company Don-Stroy, died on December 9, 2022 in Antibes on the French Riviera.

    According to reports, he felt ill, fell over a railing and hit his head, and later died in the emergency room without regaining consciousness.

  • Vladimir Bidnov, a business associate and travel buddy of Pavel Antov died on December 22, 2022 in Oshida, India of heart problems, although he reportedly had no previous history of heart disease.

    Two days later his close companion died in the same hotel under suspicious circumstances.

  • Alexander Buzhkov, CEO of Admiralty Shipyards died suddenly on December 24, 2022 in St. Petersburg - a day after attending the commissioning ceremony of a new Lada submarine. No explanation was given for the cause of death.

  • Pavel Antov, founder of Vladmirsky Standart, a meat processing company, and deputy (member) of the Legislative Assembly of the Vladimir Region died on December 24, 2022 after allegedly falling from a hotel window in India.

    His colleague, Vladimir Bidnov, died in the same hotel two days before.

  • Alexey Maslov, former Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Ground Forces and special representative of Orlovognezvod, died on December 24, 2022 in the main military hospital Burdenko, in Moscow "unexpectedly" and for no published reason.

  • Magmadov Abdulov, former Prime Minister of the Republic of Dagestan died on January 5, 2023 after being hit by a car while crossing a street in Makhachkala, the capital of the Republic of Dagestan.

Why are the oligarchs dying?

According to experts on Russia, the political violence and the wave of murders are due to the drying up of cash flow to the country.

Since the war in Ukraine began almost a year ago, international sanctions against Russia have stopped the steady flow of cash, which means the rich no longer live as they used to and that, in turn, leads to bloodshed.



"This is a message from the Russian state saying - 'It doesn't matter where you go in the world, we will find you and we will make you end your life, in a way that it will be very clear that it is us, even though we will deny it and claim that someone else was responsible for your death,'" said Matthew Sussex , an expert on Russian politics and foreign policy from ANU, the Australian National University, who estimated that "it could be an internal struggle among the various groups in the Kremlin - something that Putin set up himself, or it could be that huge deals went wrong."



In the investigative program they concluded that money means power and there is no more powerful person in Russia than Putin, but their experts said that even the leader will be influenced.

"When you look at an oligarch and see that he is worth a certain amount of money - the reality is that he is only worth half of that amount, because the other half belongs to Vladimir Putin," Browder said, "He has no feelings, he is a man without feelings so he does not care. Whatever he is I think about him if someone tries to kill him."

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Source: walla

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