Did his contracts with Gazprom cost him his life? In Russia, another oligarch linked to the group died – the cases show a similar pattern. / Yuri Voronov is dead
The Russian oligarch Yuri Voronov, who had connections to the Russian state-owned company Gazprom, is dead. As the British tabloid “Daily Mail” reported, the 61-year-old was found with a gunshot wound to the head in the swimming pool of his villa in St. Petersburg. A pistol and empty shell casings were lying on the edge of the pool.
According to the media, this is the sixth influential Russian entrepreneur to lose his life since the beginning of the year. Many of them have ties to Gazprom, three – including Voronov – even hail from the same suburb of St. Petersburg, according to the Daily Mail.
Voronov ran a logistics company that had contracts with Gazprom in the Arctic. Investigators attribute his death to a dispute with business partners.
Sixth fatality since the beginning of the year
According to the Daily Mail, the other victims are Alexander Tyulakov, a senior Gazprom official, Leonid Shulman, head of transport at Gazprom Invest, Alexander Subbotin, a former executive at energy giant Lukoil, Vladislav Avayev, a former Kremlin employee, and Sergey Protosenya, ex-vice chairman of the Kremlin-affiliated company Novatek.
Some of the men’s wives and children were apparently also found dead. The deaths are said to have appeared staged like suicides, although there is some evidence of murder.
