{"id":49135,"date":"2022-10-17T15:11:16","date_gmt":"2022-10-17T15:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/?p=49135"},"modified":"2022-10-17T15:17:47","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T15:17:47","slug":"russian-businessmen-keep-dying-no-one-knows-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/russian-businessmen-keep-dying-no-one-knows-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian businessmen keep dying. No one knows why."},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A Russian pedestrian walks along a bridge over the Moskva River in front of the Vodovzvodnaya tower of the Kremlin and the Russian Foreign Ministry headquarters in central Moscow on October 4, 2022. Yuri Kadobnov\/AFP via Getty Images<\/cite><\/p>\n

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It\u2019s a rough year to be a high-profile Russian: After nearly eight months of war in Ukraine, the Russian military is reeling and on its back foot; sanctions<\/a> continue<\/a> to squeeze the country\u2019s economy and elite \u2014 and at least 15 Russian businessmen<\/a> and executives have died in apparent accidents or by suicide, including a number of Putin allies.<\/p>\n

The victims range from an executive with Gazprom, a major state-owned oil company, to the managing director of a state-run development corporation. The causes of death range from unremarkable \u2014 a stroke, for example \u2014 to lurid, such as death by toad poison<\/a> in a shaman\u2019s basement.<\/p>\n

Combined, the sheer number of deaths, as well as the prominence of the dead and a long history<\/a> of suspicious demises<\/a> in Putin\u2019s Russia, have raised questions about whether something other than ordinary bad luck is at fault.<\/p>\n

According to Stanislav Markus<\/a>, an associate professor at the University of South Carolina business school and author of Property, Predation, and Protection: Piranha Capitalism in Russia and Ukraine<\/em><\/a>, it\u2019s a near certainty. \u201cWe can almost certainly rule out the official explanation of the deaths as suicides or poor health,\u201d Markus told me via email. He\u2019s not alone; theories vary \u2014 and generally don\u2019t feature some grand conspiracy by the Kremlin \u2014 but a number of Russia experts see \u201cmore than just randomness\u201d in the deaths, as Syracuse University professor Brian Taylor<\/a>, who specializes in Russian politics and is the author of The Code of Putinism<\/em>, put it to me in an interview.<\/p>\n

The string of mysterious fatalities began with the death of Gazprom Invest transport director Leonid Shulman in late January; a suicide note was reportedly found near his body, and the death was investigated as such<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another Gazprom executive, Alexander Tyulakov, died in February<\/a>, also by suicide, as did Ukraine-born billionaire Mikhail Watford, who was found dead in his house<\/a> in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

Vasily Melnikov, the founder of the medical supplies company MedStom, was found dead in March, in a possible murder-suicide<\/a> along with his wife and his two children. Another alleged murder-suicide, that of former Gazprombank executive Vladislav Avayev and his wife and teenage daughter, followed in April, just one day before former oil and gas executive Sergei Protosenya was also found dead along with his family in a third possible murder-suicide incident.<\/p>\n

Avayev and his family were shot to death, according to news reports<\/a>, while Protosenya was found hanged<\/a> and his wife and daughter fatally stabbed.<\/p>\n

Other subsequent deaths, including multiple deadly falls \u2014 down stairs, from a window<\/a>, from a moving boat<\/a> \u2014 have also prompted speculation, though there is no overt evidence of foul play.<\/p>\n

Most recently, Pavel Pchelnikov, a manager with the Russian Railways subsidiary Digital Logistics, died by suicide<\/a> late last month; shortly before that, on September 21, a former Russian aviation expert, Anatoly Gerashchenko, fell to his death \u201cfrom a great height\u201d and down multiple flights of stairs, according to a report in the Daily Beast citing Russian media<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of the dead, a number have links to Gazprom and Novatek, Russia\u2019s two largest natural gas companies; two others were affiliated with Lukoil, also a major energy company in Russia.<\/p>\n

There are reasons to doubt the official stories<\/p>\n

In several cases, the family and friends of the dead have already raised questions about their deaths, or rejected official conclusions of suicide.<\/p>\n

In a statement after Protosenya\u2019s death<\/a>, for example, Novatek, his former employer, said that speculations about his death \u201cbear no relation to reality,\u201d an apparent reference to early reports in Spanish media<\/a> describing it as a murder-suicide. Protosenya\u2019s son, Fedor, also told the Daily Mail<\/a> that his father \u201ccould never do anything to harm them [his family]. I don\u2019t know what happened that night but I know that my dad did not hurt them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Igor Volobuev, also a former Gazprombank executive, told CNN<\/a> he does not believe Avayev\u2019s death was truly a murder-suicide.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was in charge of very large amounts of money. So, did he kill himself? I don\u2019t think so. I think he knew something and that he posed some sort of risk,\u201d Volobuev said.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s something to these suspicions \u2014 political assassinations, after all, aren\u2019t exactly unusual in Russia. Assassination by purported suicide is virtually a category to itself: As Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, remarked on Twitter in September<\/a>, \u201cfor those keeping track at home, 12 \u2018threw himself from window\/shot himself 7 times in the head\u2019 russian oligarch deaths this year so far\u201d (a number that has since increased).<\/p>\n

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for those keeping track at home, 12 \u201cthrew himself from window\/shot himself 7 times in the head\u201d russian oligarch deaths this year so far pic.twitter.com\/3wPM4dbL2K<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) September 14, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

As recently as two years ago, Alex Ward highlighted a similar trend<\/a> in a different sector of Russian society in a story for Vox: coronavirus doctors dying after falling from high windows early in the pandemic. Those deaths were equally unexplained, but as Ward wrote at the time, murder \u201cmay not be completely out of the question.\u201d<\/p>\n

That ambiguity is a common theme around deaths in Russia; though there is rarely clear-cut evidence, questions surrounding the deaths of Putin critics<\/a> stretch back nearly two decades<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Three experts I spoke with told me that was equally the case here \u2014 though they stressed the degree of uncertainty surrounding the deaths.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number of [deaths] seems higher than random chance would suggest, but that doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s all part of the same story,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cSome of them really could be suicides or accidents. Some of them could be murders.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what really happened?<\/p>\n

The short answer is we don\u2019t know \u2014 the deaths are strange on their own and outright suspicious as a cluster, but the throughline, if there is one, remains a mystery. That being said, there are a few possible explanations.<\/p>\n

Suicide and accident \u2014 really<\/h4>\n

According to the experts I spoke with, the sheer volume of accidental deaths and suicides so far is enough to mean that this is unlikely to be the true explanation in every case. It\u2019s not impossible, however; sometimes a suicide is just a suicide and an accident is just an accident, no matter how odd.<\/p>\n

There are certainly factors that point in that direction, even beyond official findings in the deaths. Specifically, as Ward pointed out in May 2020<\/a>, Russia has the third-highest suicide rate in the world, according to the World Health Organization<\/a>. The data is now several years old \u2014 the last full set is from 2016 \u2014 but that year, about 122 people died by suicide each day in Russia, equal to more than 44,500 deaths a year.<\/p>\n

Additionally, according to Peter Rutland<\/a>, a Russia expert and professor of government at Wesleyan University, Russia\u2019s system, and perhaps especially its business community, is under substantial pressure due to the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are incredibly stressful times, right?\u201d Rutland said. \u201cBusinesspeople have seen their chances to visit Europe frozen, their assets frozen, their yachts seized, the value of the shares in their companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those factors, Rutland told me, could conceivably provoke a spate of suicides.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf businesspeople had loans that were collateralized with those assets, or which required some kind of business income, which has just disappeared because of the sanctions, you can only imagine that that would drive people to suicide,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Of course, that doesn\u2019t account perfectly for the murder-suicides, or the number of fatal accidents. But it\u2019s not impossible that at least some of the deaths are no more than what they seem on the surface.<\/p>\n

The long arm of the Kremlin<\/h4>\n

One of the most dramatic and often-speculated-about explanations is that the deaths are really killings \u2014 carried out at the order of the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n

As Bill Browder<\/a>, a onetime investor in Russia turned Kremlin critic<\/a>, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation<\/a> (ABC) this month, \u201cwhen people of all the same industry die that way, it looks to me like what I would call an epidemic of murder.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to ABC\u2019s Samantha Hawley and Flint Duxfield, Browder \u201ctold the ABC News Daily podcast he had little doubt the deaths of the Russian oligarchs \u2014 predominantly from the oil and gas sector \u2014 have come at the orders of the Kremlin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under Browder\u2019s theory, as he explained it to ABC<\/a>, the pressure of sanctions has created a financial crunch for Putin, and the deaths of businessmen are a particularly brutal way to revive streams of funding for the conflict \u2014 particularly from Russia\u2019s oil and gas industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would suspect that this guy said \u2018no\u2019 and then the best way of getting that flow of cash is to kill him and then ask his replacement the same question,\u201d Browder told ABC.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tempting answer, particularly given Putin\u2019s long history of assassinating or attempting to assassinate dissidents, such as Alexei Navalny<\/a>, who was poisoned with the Russian nerve agent Novichok in 2020 and has since been imprisoned in Russia<\/a>. It\u2019s also something Browder is familiar with \u2014 his lawyer, Sergei Magintsky<\/a>, died in a Russian prison in 2009 after uncovering apparent large-scale fraud by the Russian government.<\/p>\n

However, Taylor told me, it\u2019s not the most likely explanation in this case.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a big leap from saying yes, there\u2019s been a campaign of repression against internal opposition going back for a long time, and evidence of some high-profile people being targeted by the state, to saying everyone who\u2019s killed mysteriously was killed either because of their business dealings with Putin or their criticism of the state,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n

Fiona Hill, a former Russia specialist on the National Security Council staff, agrees. \u201cNot every unexplained death in Russia is the KGB or the GRU bumping someone off,\u201d she told Politico Magazine in August<\/a> regarding the apparent suicide of Dan Rapoport, a Washington, DC-based Kremlin critic who previously did business in Russia.<\/p>\n

Internal business pressures turned deadly<\/h4>\n

That leaves a third theory, one that both Taylor and Rutland indicate is far more likely than either a Kremlin-directed campaign of assassinations or a spate of genuine accidents and suicides.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the recent run of deaths among Russia\u2019s business elite could well be disguised killings \u2014 but the killings may be a product of Russia\u2019s tangled political and economic structures, which are newly under pressure from Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine, more than of any specific, overarching agenda.<\/p>\n

According to Taylor, the deaths could have more to do with \u201cshady business, attempt to cover tracks, attempt to wipe out a competitor, trying to maybe get rid of someone who\u2019s inconvenient at a time when there\u2019s a lot of pressure on state-affiliated companies, especially in the oil and gas sector, but also in the defense sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

Markus agrees, noting in an email that \u201cthere are competing influential clans\u201d within the Russian state \u201cthat span state institutions and private or state-owned firms.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far these clans have been loyal to Putin, but this loyalty has not reduced their predatory appetites,\u201d Markus told me. \u201cFrom the clans\u2019 viewpoint, the current situation has led to (1) lower cash flows available for diversion or theft; and (2) less certainty in Putin\u2019s future as the ultimate leader of Russian kleptocracy. Hence, clans may be settling their scores and competing more viciously \u2014 which could involve murders in question \u2014 without this being a centralized Kremlin effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

That explanation also makes more sense than the Kremlin-directed conspiracy theory, given the cross section of Russia\u2019s business class that\u2019s turned up dead. Though there are some common linkages \u2014 ties to energy companies, for example \u2014 some experts, such as Mark Galeotti, the author of the upcoming book Putin\u2019s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine<\/em>, have pointed out that coverage of the deaths can paint with an overly broad brush.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen did the death of the former rector of a technical university become the (implied: mysterious) end of a \u2018Putin ally\u2019? (Everyone dying in [Russia] now is elevated to oligarch or ally),\u201d Galeotti tweeted after the death of Geraschenko in September.<\/p>\n

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When did the death of the former rector of a technical university become the (implied: mysterious) end of a \u201cPutin ally\u201d?
\n(Everyone dying in now is elevated to oligarch or ally)<\/p>\n

Putin ally dies after falling down stairs on day of Russia mobilizationhttps:\/\/t.co\/NIJ9faFZjD<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Mark Galeotti (@MarkGaleotti) September 23, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Significantly, both Taylor and Rutland emphasize that there\u2019s still a great deal of uncertainty around the deaths. However, under the third and, according to them, more likely theory, continued pressure on Russia\u2019s economy could well accelerate the trend.<\/p>\n

Violence as a way of doing business has been \u201cdeeply normalized going back to the 1990s,\u201d Rutland said. \u201cAnd so as the regime enters what could be its death throes, or certainly it\u2019s under huge pressure, you can imagine that there\u2019s gonna be this \u2014 well, it\u2019s not yet a bloodbath, but you can imagine that the faction fighting will get even more desperate.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are no satisfying answers to be had, at least for now. Recent history supports the idea that such deaths are something Putin would be fully capable of, but he lacks a clear motive that connects them all; as some close Russia watchers have observed<\/a>, Russia\u2019s cutthroat business culture is at least equally likely to be culpable as a repressive Kremlin. In both cases, there\u2019s a distinct dearth of evidence \u2014 but the speculation only underscores the overlapping brutality of Russian business and Putin\u2019s regime.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Russian pedestrian walks along a bridge over the Moskva River in front of the Vodovzvodnaya tower of the Kremlin and the Russian Foreign Ministry headquarters in central Moscow on October 4, 2022. Yuri Kadobnov\/AFP via Getty Images It\u2019s a rough year to be a high-profile Russian: After nearly eight months of war in Ukraine, Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[860,39,5,1],"tags":[19,25],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49135"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49138,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49135\/revisions\/49138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}