A wealthy Russian MP has become the latest in a series of high-profile energy executives to die since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Nikolay Petrunin, dubbed Russia ’s ‘Gas Wonderkid’, was only 47 when he died after being in a coma for a month. His death was confirmed by his assistants.
The multi millionaire father of three was formerly a top gas industry executive, and is said to have died from complications linked to severe Covid, although this is not confirmed.
Petrunin was deputy chairman of the Russian parliament’s powerful energy committee as well as a Putin loyalist and “political prodigy”.
His businesses built gas pipelines for major Russian energy operators and he had links to Kremlin gas behemoth Gazprom - now starving the West of Russian supplies over the war - and Rosneft.
Being the boss of PromGazService, Petrunin formerly had businesses linked to beer and tourism.
The father of three was married to Albina Petrunina, a former police woman holding the rank of major.
Albina later became the co-owner of MetaTrendCity company, along with influential Gazprom manager Vladimir Vasiliev.
This week it has also emerged that a leading judge, Sergey Maslov, 42, was killed at or near the epicentre of the Crimean Bridge blast.
Maslov had overseen cases involving energy giant Gazprom and the Moscow city government at Moscow Arbitration Court.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, there has been a spate of mysterious deaths associated with Gazprom and energy companies.
On 1 September, oil tycoon Ravil Maganov, 67, fell to his death from the sixth floor window of a Moscow hospital.
One report that has not been officially confirmed says that the chairman of Lukoil - Russia’s second largest oil company - was “beaten” before he was “thrown out of a window”.
His company had been known to voice opposition to the war in Ukraine.
Putin arrived at the elite Central Clinical Hospital very soon after Maganov’s body was found, to pay his last respects to the final Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who had also died at the hospital.
Earlier this year, Yuri Voronov, 61, head of a transport and logistics company for a Gazprom-linked company, was found dead in his swimming pool in July. A friend who is a top criminologist made claims of foul play.
Two more deaths of Gazprom-linked executives were reported in elite homes near St Petersburg amid suspicions their apparent suicides may have been murders.
Alexander Tyulakov, 61, a senior Gazprom financial and security official at deputy general director level, was found dead by his lover the day after war started in Ukraine in February.
He died in his £500,000 home whilst his neck was in a noose.
But reports say he had been badly beaten shortly before he “took his own life”, leading to speculation that he may have been under intense pressure.
Three weeks earlier, in the same elite housing development, Leonid Shulman, 60, head of transport at Gazprom Invest, was found dead with multiple stab wounds in a pool of blood on his bathroom floor.
Billionaire Alexander Subbotin, 43, also linked to Kremlin-friendly energy giant Lukoil where he was a top manager, was found dead in May after “taking advice from shamans”.
One theory given was that Subbotin - who also owned a shipping company, was poisoned by toad venom which triggered a heart attack.
In April, wealthy Vladislav Avayev, 51, a former Kremlin official, appeared to have taken his own life after killing his wife Yelena, 47, and daughter, 13.
Avayev had high level links to leading Russian financial institution Gazprombank.
Some friends have disputed that he was jealous after his wife admitted she was pregnant by their driver. There are also claims he had access to the financial secrets of the Kremlin elite.
Several days later multimillionaire Sergey Protosenya, 55, was found hanged in Spain, after evidently killing his wife Natalia, 53, and their teenage daughter, Maria, with an axe.
He was a former deputy chairman of Novatek, a company also closely linked to the Kremlin.
Questions have also been raised over the death of Putin’s point man for developing Russia’s vast Arctic resources. It was claimed he “fell overboard” to his death from a boat sailing off the country’s Pacific coast.
Ivan Pechorin, 39, had recently attended a major conference hosted by the Kremlin warmonger in Vladivostok.
Pechorin was managing director of Putin’s Far East and Arctic Development Corporation.
And in another case a mobile phone multi-millionaire and his wife were found stabbed to death in another case that has raised questions.
Naked Yevgeny Palant, 47, and his wife Olga, 50, both Ukrainian-born, were found with multiple knife wounds by their daughter Polina, 20.
Immediate briefing to the media claimed the woman took her own life in a jealous rage after Palant said he was leaving her.
Yet this was strongly disputed by the couple’s best friend.
