The chairman of Russian energy firm Lukoil, which criticised Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, died after falling from a hospital window in Moscow, state media has reported.
Ravil Maganov, 67, was pronounced dead after plunging from a ward on the sixth floor of the Central Clinical Hospital where he was receiving treatment, according to Interfax.
Police are investigating the cause of his fall, which came months after Lukoil publicly opposed Putin’s military assault.
It came as a team of UN nuclear inspectors crossed the frontline into Russian-held territory in southern Ukraine to reach Europe’s biggest atomic power plant which is being held by Putin’s forces.
After being delayed several hours by shelling near the site, the team reached the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in a large convoy with a heavy presence of Russian soldiers nearby.
Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of trying to sabotage the IAEA mission to the plant, which sits on the south bank of a huge reservoir on the Dnipro River that divides Russian and Ukrainian forces in central southern Ukraine. Since the early days of the conflict, the plant has been controlled by Russian troops but operated by Ukrainian staff.
Lukoil confirmed Mr Maganov’s death in a statement which said only he had “passed away following a severe illness”.
Russian state news agency Tass reported Mr Maganov’s death as suicide and said he had been in hospital following a heart attack.
Lukoil, Russia’s second-largest oil producer, is one of the few companies in the country to come out in opposition to the war in Ukraine. In a statement in March it said: “Calling for the soonest termination of the armed conflict, we express our sincere empathy for all victims, who are affected by this tragedy.
“We strongly support a lasting ceasefire and a settlement of problems through serious negotiations and diplomacy.”
Mr Maganov had worked in Lukoil since 1993, shortly after the company’s inception, and had overseen its refining, production and exploration, becoming chairman in 2020.
He is is the latest high-profile figure to die in unusual circumstances.
Billionaire Alexander Subbotin, a former board member of Lukoil who owned a shipping company, allegedly died after shamans treated him with toad venom to cure his hangover.
Leonid Shulman, 60, who served as the head of the transport service at Gazprom Invest, was found dead on January 30 in the bathroom of a cottage north of Saint Petersburg.
Alexander Tyulakov, 61, an executive at Gazprom, was found dead in the garage of his St Petersburg home on February 25, the morning after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Mikhail Watford, a 66-year-old Ukrainian-born businessman, was found dead at a property in Surrey on 28 February.
Vladislav Avayev, a 51-year-old ex-vice president at Gazprombank, was found dead in a Moscow apartment along with the bodies of his wife and daughter on April 18. UK Independent
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