Since the beginning of 2022, five cases have been recorded when people closely associated with the gas business in Russia suddenly passed away.
Russia is not only waging war against Ukraine, but crackdowns and repression are also continuing within the country. In addition, in conjunction with the fighting and hitting sanctions in Russia, a kind of cleanup of the tops of the gas sector, which was surprised by an unexpected series of high-profile deaths, is taking place.
death in the villa
On April 19, former Novatek top manager Sergey Protosenya, his wife and daughter were found dead in the city of Lloret de Mar in Spain. The bodies of the top manager’s wife Natalya and 18-year-old daughter with stab wounds were found in the rooms of the family-owned villa. Protosenya’s body itself was found in the garden; he died of strangulation, an ax and knife were found next to him.
According to the Spanish newspaper, the top manager allegedly killed his wife and daughter, then committed suicide.
The Protoseni family lived in France, and they went to Spain for the Easter holidays. The fortune of the former top manager of Novatek is estimated at 400 million euros. Police are considering a version according to which the man may have killed his wife and daughter, and then committed suicide.
However, many factors suggest that it may not be a suicide. There were no records of confessions or explanations of the motives for the murder, no reports of cases of Protosenya’s mistreatment of family members, much blood at the crime scene, but no stains on the clothing of the hanged. tao. According to experts, the killer acted with gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints.
Police obtained physical evidence and are investigating surveillance footage to determine if anyone entered the villa, secretly or with the permission of the Russians. At the same time, the version of triple murder, disguised as an act of domestic violence followed by suicide, remains functional.
Novatek is the second largest company in Russia in terms of gas production. According to the telegram channel Baza, until the end of November 2021, Sergey Protosenya will be the owner of the shares of JSCB Forbank, which are protected by the FSB.
Similar deaths in Moscow
On April 18, a day before the events in Spain, former Gazprombank vice-president Vladislav Avaev, his wife and minor daughter were found dead in Moscow. All of the dead had gunshot wounds. And again one time – according to the preliminary version of the investigation, Avaev killed his wife and daughter and committed suicide.
According to sources from Russia’s propaganda agency TASS, the cause of the incident may have allegedly been a domestic conflict.
Telegram channel 112 wrote that the motive for the murder was a long -standing conflict between the banker and his wife. Say, Vladislav Avaev found out that his wife was in a relationship with another man and was pregnant.
EPA
Avaev has worked for a long time at Gazprombank, the largest universal financial institution in the Russian Federation, which is fully controlled by Gazprom (now under US and EU sanctions). Also, at one time he was deputy director of the Department of Administration of the Government of the Russian Federation, and in recent years he led the company Carbonix, which produces carbon bone replacement implants. The company’s partner is Rostec Corporation. One of the founders of the Carbonix company was called Anastasia Karneeva, journalists called her the daughter of the deputy head of Rostec and retired FSB general Nikolai Volobuev.
Previous cases
In addition to Avayev and Protosenya, three other top managers associated with Russia’s gas business died shortly before the aggressor’s invasion of Ukraine or immediately afterwards.
On January 29, the body of Leonid Shulman, 60-year-old head of the transportation service Gazprom-Invest, was found in a mansion in the cottage village of Leninsky, Vyborgsky District, Leningrad Region (the village is known as the hive. of Gazprom). A bloody body with a deep wound lay on the floor in the bathroom, on the side of the bathtub was a construction knife. Police found a note in which Shulman complained of unbearable pain. The man was on sick leave after the injury, he had Ilizarov apparatus installed on his leg. Novaya Gazeta wrote that investigators questioned the authenticity of the suicide note.
On February 25, in the same village, the body of 61-year-old Alexander Tyulakov, deputy general director of the Unified Settlement Center of Gazprom (the treasury of the main gas monopolist of the Russian Federation) was found. It hung in a basement, and next to it was written a suicide note (its contents not disclosed). When criminologists worked at the scene of Tyulakov’s death, Gazprom security officers drove into the house, cordoned off the territory and evacuated Sledkom and police officers. According to the same Novaya Gazeta, on the eve of Tyulakov’s death, he was seen badly beaten.
March 3, 66-year-old Mikhail Watford (aka Mikhail Tolstosheya) was found hanging in his mansion in Surrey (England). Police did not consider his death “suspicious,” but they could not explain the motive for the suicide, the Daily Mail reported. Watford has made a fortune in producing oil and gas in Russia. In the early 2000s, he moved to the UK, changed his last name and entered real estate.
Chance?
Former deputy State Duma of the opposition, retired FSB colonel Gennady Gudkov did not exclude that this mysterious death was a way of fixing marks on leading state-owned companies with some knowledge . “For them (FSB and Kremlin) it is very important now not to let the rats escape from the ship in so many numbers, because these rats know a lot of things and can start talking. This is a version of conspiracy, but I am was extremely embarrassed at the unity of the details (the deaths of Avaev and Protosenya). After all, such an opportunity was a handwriting, serial killers called it, “Gudkov said.
Source: korrespondent
