Another Russian oligarch has mysteriously been found dead after ‘secretly getting rights to live in UK’.
Pro-Vladimir Putin MP and soft drinks tycoon Nikolay Bortsov was discovered dead in his home on Sunday.
The 77-year-old multi-millionaire, who used to own a big stake in Pepsi, is the latest high profile Russian to die after a string of curious deaths.
He is the 40th well-known person to have been found dead under suspicious circumstances in just over a year.
Bortsov had been sanctioned by the UK due to his support for the war in Ukraine.
He had secretly obtained the right to live in Britain, according to leaked data in 2019.
The oligarch - a member of the main pro-Putin party United Russia - was discovered at his home in the Lipetsk region this weekend.
No cause of death has yet been given.
Bortsov was one of Putin’s richest MPs and was reportedly worth £450 million. He always denied holding British citizenship.
He is the latest Russian figure to die since the tyrant's deadly invasion last February.
Those to have been found dead include scientists and even generals.
Deaths include sudden "suicides" and mysterious falls from windows and helicopter crashes.
An expert last year said their deaths are the work of Vladimir Putin's Kremlin.
It had been reported that many of the deaths were “murder-suicides” but author John O’Neill told the New York Post that he believes we are now seeing “classic Soviet-era tactics” commonly used by Stalin.
He said that Russia ’s fearsome Unit 29155, that’s part of Russia’s vast military intelligence agency, the GRU, are believed to be behind the staged murder-suicides and poisonings with Putin trying to send a message to people.
He added that he had learnt that Russian intelligence drew up two lists containing the names of executives in that country’s energy industry, in late 2021 and at the start of March last year and believed that someone in the industry was leaking information about the invasion of Ukraine.
“The list was presented to Putin by the FSB [the Federal Security Service] and Putin approved the liquidation of everyone on the list without even looking at it.
“Putin finances a lot of his operations through Gazprom and Gazprombank, and the executives who work there know all about this secret financing. The gas sector is the most corrupt sector in Russia.”
