The Kremlin has escalated its bloody purge of Moscow’s anti-war elite, bumping off VIPs in a bid to smash any opposition to Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine invasion.
Fears among Putin’s oligarchy have soared since the suspicious death this month of anti-war oil magnate Ravil Maganov, 67, amid claims he was beaten before “falling” to his death.
It is suspected to be the most high-profile and barely concealed murder of a tycoon who had voiced his disapproval of the war publicly.
Shortly after the invasion on February 24, Maganov’s company Lukoil had expressed its “deepest concerns about the tragic events in Ukraine,” and urged “the soonest termination of the armed conflict.”
Sources claim Mr Maganov was assaulted before plunging from a sixth-floor hospital window on Thursday morning – just before Russian President Putin visited the health complex.
Claims have been made that Putin knew about the assassination and approved of Mr Maganov being “thrown out of a window.”
Anti-Putin campaigners on the Telegram app claimed: “The reason for the murder was Maganov’s ‘special opinion’ different from the opinion of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin not only knew about the preparation of the assassination, but also gave his consent by approving the method and timing of the liquidation.”
Putin arrived at the elite Central Clinical Hospital shortly after Mr Maganov’s death to pay his final respects to ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who was at the time lying in state in the complex.
Suspicions that Mr Maganov was murdered were echoed by Anastasia Kashevarova, co-founder of independent news outlet Daily Storm
She wrote on social media shortly after his death: “This was not a natural death, but a man-made one.
“Moreover, the death [was] on the birthday of Lukoil co-owner Vagit Alekperov. Moreover, death [was] on the day of Putin’s arrival to say goodbye to Gorbachev.”
It is just one in a long line of so-called “suicides” or mystery deaths which are suspected of being political assassinations, dating back to the killing of Putin critic and ex-KGB man Alexander Litvinenko in 2006.
Three months before Litvinenko was poisoned in London, Moscow’s laws were changed to allow anyone suspected of being anti-Kremlin or critical of Putin to be liquidated.
But since the Ukraine invasion, there have been so many that Russian spies have tried and often failed to make the deaths look like suicides.
The 12 war critics found dead this year
Jan 3 Just before the invasion, senior Gazprom boss Leonid Schulman , 60, was found having supposedly slit his own throat. He cited pain from a broken leg in a suspicious-looking suicide note.
Feb 25 The body of another Gazprom boss Alexander Tyulyakjov , 61, was found hanging in an apartment garage in St Petersburg – a suicide note lying next to his body, the morning after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Feb 28 Ukraine-born oil tycoon Mikhail Watford , 66, was found hanging in his garage in Surrey, having moved to the UK in the 2000s. Officers treated his death as unexplained but not suspicious.
Mar 23 Oligarch Vasily Melnikov was found dead alongside wife Galina and their two sons, aged four and 10, in their apartment in Ninzhni Novgorod, east of Moscow. Knives were left nearby.
Apr 18 Banker and oligarch Vladislav Avayev , 51, died of gunshot wounds in his Moscow apartment, along with his wife and 13 year-old daughter. The luxury flat had been locked from the inside.
Apr 19 The body of oligarch Sergey Protosenya , 55, was found hanging and those of his wife and 18 year-old daughter were found nearby with stab wounds at their luxury villa in Lloret de Mar, Spain.
May 1 Andrei Krukovsky , 37, boss of the Gazprom-owned Krasnaya Polyana ski resort, near Sochi, died from injuries in hospital. A champion mountaineer, he had reportedly fallen from a cliff whilst out walking.
May 8 Lukoil executive Alexander Subbotin , 43, was found dead in the Moscow suburbs. Having been drunk and drugged, he died from a heart attack in the basement of a shaman’s home.
Sep 1 Lukoil’s Ravil Maganov , 67, fell to his death from the sixth floor of a hospital.
Sep 10 Tycoon Ivan Pechorin , 39, a former Putin ally, drowned near Vladivostok, having fallen from a boat. He was a manager for the Corporation for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic.
Sep 12 Vasily Trokhin , 57, a former regional government official, went missing in Moscow. He is a Putin loyalist, and honoured regional Afghanistan veterans’ leader. Mr Trokhin is listed as a missing person.
Sep 20 Anatoly Gerashchenko , 73, senior scientist and decorated former head of the Moscow Aviation Institute, died in a mystery fall inside the institute’s headquarters in the Russian capital.
