The death of a top Russian oil executive this week is the latest in a string of oil executives in the country who have reportedly died from suicide or in accidents this year.
Russian media outlets reported that Ravil Maganov, the chairman of the board of Lukoil, Russia’s largest private oil company, died on Thursday after falling out of a window at a hospital where he was being treated. TASS, the state-run news agency, reported that an unnamed law enforcement source said Maganov died by suicide.
Maganov was being treated at the hospital after having a heart attack and was taking antidepressants, TASS reported.
Lukoil is one of the few companies that have publicly criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, calling for an end to the conflict in March. More than half a dozen other oil executives have died this year under unclear circumstances.
Here are the Russian oil executives who have died mysteriously in the past nine months:
Leonid Shulman
Leonid Shulman, a top executive for the Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom, was found dead of a reported suicide in a cottage in the village of Leninsky on Jan. 30.
Russian media reported that a suicide note was found at the scene. The note reportedly said that Shulman had unbearable pain in a broken leg.
Alexander Tyulakov
Alexander Tyulakov, another top executive for Gazprom, was found dead in the same village almost a month later in a garage. An independent Russian newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, reported that his death appeared to be a suicide.
He was also reportedly seen badly beaten on the night before his death.
Novaya Gazeta reported that Leninsky is considered an exclusive estate for top Gazprom executives.
Mikhail Watford
Ukraine-born oligarch Mikhail Watford, who became a billionaire through the oil and gas industry, was found dead three days after Tyulakov at his home in England. Local British officers reportedly said at the time that they considered his death to be unexplained but not suspicious.
Vladislav Avayev
Vladislav Avayev, the former vice president of Gazprombank, one of the largest banks in Russia, which has ties to the energy industry, was found dead in his apartment in Moscow along with his wife and daughter on April 18.
Police reportedly found a pistol in Avayev’s hands, leading them to consider the incident a case of murder-suicide.
Sergei Protosenya
A similar incident occurred one day after Avayev’s death when Sergei Protosenya, a former deputy chairman of Novatek, a Russian natural gas firm, was found hanged while his wife and daughter were found stabbed to death, according to Radio Free Europe, a U.S. government-funded media outlet.
They were found at a villa in Spain. Police were investigating the death as a murder-suicide, but Protosenya’s son rejected the theory, saying that his father was not a killer and would never hurt his family, the British tabloid the Daily Mirror reported.
Alexander Subbotin
Former top Lukoil executive Alexander Subbotin was found dead in May in the basement of a house near Moscow. TASS reported that Subbotin lost consciousness as a result of a heart attack, and police opened a criminal investigation into his death.
Yury Voronov
Yury Voronov, the head of a transport and logistics company that holds contracts with Gazprom for the Arctic region, was found dead in a swimming pool at his home in July.
He was found with a gunshot wound to the head, and a pistol was found nearby, according to local media. Some shell casings were found at the bottom of the pool.
His wife reportedly told police that Voronov began abusing alcohol in the two weeks leading up to his death, and he had lost a lot of money during that time in disagreements with contractors.