What a weird coincidence. Another Russian dies from falling window syndrome:
The chairman of Russia’s Lukoil oil giant, Ravil Maganov, has died after falling from a hospital window in Moscow, reports say.
The company confirmed his death but said only that Maganov, 67, had “passed away following a severe illness”.
Russian media said he was being treated at Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital and died of his injuries.
Maganov is the latest of a number of high-profile business executives to die in mysterious circumstances.
Investigating authorities said they were working at the scene to establish how he died. Tass news agency quoted sources saying he had fallen out of a sixth-floor window early on Thursday morning, adding later that he had taken his own life.
Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Lukoil board called for the conflict to end as soon as possible, expressing its sympathy to victims of “this tragedy”.
Its billionaire president, Vagit Alekperov, resigned in April after the UK imposed sanctions on him in response to the invasion.
Several Russian energy oligarchs have died in unusual circumstances in recent months:
The body of millionaire Novatek former manager Sergei Protosenya was found alongside his wife and daughter at a Spanish villa in April
A former vice-president of Gazprombank, Vladislav Avayev, was found dead with his wife and daughter in their Moscow flat, also in April
In May, a former Lukoil tycoon Alexander Subbotin died of heart failure, reportedly after seeking alternative treatment from a shaman.
Falling window syndrome is an epidemic in Russia:
In December 2021, Yegor Prosvirnin—the founder of nationalist website Sputnik and Pogrom—died after falling out of a window of a residential building in the center of Moscow.
He allegedly threw a knife and gas canister out of the window before the fall, BBC News reported.
Prosvirnin had supported Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 but later began to predict a civil war and the collapse of the Russian Federation.
On October 19, 2021 a Russian diplomat was found dead after a fall from a window of the Russian embassy in Berlin, Der Spiegel reported.
The man was a second secretary at the embassy, but German intelligence sources told the newspaper they suspected he was an undercover officer with Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).
Investigative outlet Bellingcat said it used open-source data to identify the deceased man as Kirill Zhalo, the son of General Alexey Zhalo, deputy director of the FSB’s Second Service.
In late December 2020, Alexander “Sasha” Kagansky, a top Russian scientist reportedly working on a COVID-19 vaccine at the time, was found dead with a stab wound after falling from his high-rise apartment in St. Petersburg.
According to Russian outlet Fontanka, the suspect, a childhood friend of Kagansky, told police that Kagansky stabbed himself then jumped to his death.
There were also reports of health care workers falling out of hospital windows—some to their deaths—in Russia during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Two Russian doctors died and another was seriously injured after falls from hospital widows over a two-week period between April and May 2020. Reports said two of the doctors had protested working conditions and the third was being blamed after her colleagues contracted the virus.
And in July, Dan Rapoport, a 52-year-old Latvian-American investment banker and outspoken Putin critic, died after a fall from a luxury apartment building in Washington, D.C.
Police say they didn’t suspect foul play, Politico reported, but the case remains under investigation.
Rapoport’s friends fear he was assassinated, with one telling The Daily Beast that the circumstances of his death are “highly suspicious.” Rapoport had made a fortune working in Moscow before falling out of favor with the Russian government, according to reports.
Rapoport’s former business partner, Sergei Tkachenko, fell to his death from a Moscow apartment building in 2017.
If you wonder why America’s right wing loves Putin so much, I think this is one of the reasons. He takes care of political business the way they would like to take care of political business.