A former Russian oil executive has been found dead after apparently falling from the window of his Moscow flat.
Mikhail Rogachev was found outside his 10th-story apartment in Moscow with injuries consistent with a fall, Russian media reported.
Suicide Note Found at the Scene
Russian news agencies said authorities were treating his death as a suicide and are reportedly investigating a suicide note found at the scene.
Telegram channels close to the Russian security services said his body was discovered by an agent of the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service, who was walking the dog of a senior spymaster in the building’s courtyard on Saturday morning.
The 64-year-old was a former vice-president of Yukos, the oil giant that was broken up following the imprisonment of its billionaire owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky after challenging Vladimir Putin. He went on to work as executive director of the Onexim group, oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov’s investment vehicle, and later deputy general director of Norilsk Nickel, a mining giant.
Although Rogachev’s death is being reported as a suicide. His relatives allege foul play, according to the Daily Mail. They insist there were no signs that Rogachev was suicidal, and that he was in a “good mood” before his death and could not have possibly committed suicide.
More Than a Dozen Energy Execs Have Died under Mysterious Circumstances Since Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine
He is the latest of nearly a dozen Russian energy executives to die in mysterious circumstances over the past two years. There have been “numerous” unexplained deaths of prominent Russians since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, per Newsweek.
Leonid Shulman, the head of the transport service at Gazprom Invest, which handles investment projects for state-owned gas giant, was found dead in a cottage north of St Petersburg in January 2022.
Alexander Tyulakov, another executive at Gazprom, was found dead in the garage of his St Petersburg home on February 25 that year, the morning after Russia invaded Ukraine, Russian media reported.
Later that year, Ravil Magonov, the chairman of Lukoil, an oil giant, died after falling out of the window of a Moscow hospital. Vladimir Nekrasov, who succeeded him as the chair of the Lukoil board, died in October last year of heart failure.
