A Russian energy boss has become the latest to be found dead in mysterious circumstances since the start of the invasion of Ukraine.
Igor Shkurko, deputy general director of firm Yakutskenergo, was discovered in his cell in a detention centre in Yakutsk, Siberia.
The 49-year-old dad of two sons had been accused of taking a £5,000 bribe and the day before his death had submitted appeals against what he claimed was an “unjust allegation”.
Russian authorities provided no details on how Shkurko - a member of the pro-Putin United Russia political party before the bribery allegation - died.
It is understood there are no signs it had been a “criminal death”.
Yakutskenergo issued a statement saying: “We will remember him as an open, hospitable person with a big heart and a good sense of humour, the caring head of a close-knit family.”
The Russian Federal Penitentiary Service said in a statement:”On April 4, the accused was found in a cell of the pre-trial detention centre with no signs of life.
“Arriving medical workers ascertained his death. An investigative team was called to the scene. According to preliminary data, no signs of a criminal death were found.”
He was in charge of the technical management side of Yakutskenergo, which supplies power to the world’s coldest region, Yakutia.
A number of unexplained deaths have been reported since the start of Vladimir Putin ’s war in Ukraine more than 13 months ago.
Last month Novaya Gazeta Europe, a leading investigative news outlet, and Transparency International Russia linked a series of suspicious deaths related to Gazprom to a complex “money-laundering scheme” benefiting a top gas executive’s family and his cronies from Putin’s security services and military.
Among susupious energy industry deaths were Alexander Tyulyakov, deputy head of corporate security at Gazprom's United Settlement Centre, the energy giant’s “treasury”, who allegedly committed suicide the day after war was declared.
He died in Gazprom's guarded Leninsky corporate village in Leningrad region, near St Petersburg on 25 February 2022.
His body was reportedly discovered by his lover with his neck in a noose, although there are strong suspicions he did not take his own life.
A suicide note was found near the body of a man revealed as a former KGB and FSB officer, but his death has remained “mysterious”, said the report, not least since his body was “badly beaten” before death.
Two months later Vladislav Avayev, 51, a vice-president of Gazprombank and former Kremlin official, was found dead in Moscow, alongside the bodies of his wife Elena, 47, and daughter Maria, 13.
They were discovered by his adult daughter, Anastasia and investigators rapidly concluded Avayev had killed them, before taking his own life.
The story was disputed at the time by a former top Gazprombank official who claimed Avayev had access to the private accounts of elite clients, including Vladimir Putin’s circle and possibly the president himself.
"These top managers worked in structures that we suspect were linked to financial fraud in multi-billion dollar contracts with Gazprom,” said Novaya Gazeta Europe and Transparency International Russia.
This was “benefiting the family” of a Russian gas monopoly executive “and his close friends from the security services and the military.”
Another energy manager, Leonid Shulman of Gazprom Invest, died in the same settlement as Tyulyakov.
He was found dead with multiple stab wounds in a pool of blood on his bathroom floor.
A Gazprombank vice-president who quit to fight for Ukraine in the war, Igor Volobuev, earlier expressed the view that said Avayev had been murdered.
He said: “It is hard to believe that Avayev shot his daughter, 13, [his wife] and committed suicide
“In my opinion, this is a staged suicide. His suicide was staged.”
He made the same claim about multimillionaire Sergey Protosenya, 55, a former deputy chairman of Novatek, who died several days after Avayev.
He was found hanged in Spain, after evidently killing with an axe his wife Natalia, 53, and their teenage daughter.
“All these stories are strange. I don't believe in suicide. It will not fit into my head."
