FLY. Another incident, still names linked to the Russian leadership among the victims: the list of oligarchs and managers of Moscow, many of them close to the Kremlin, who have lost their lives in recent months, is getting longer. The latest names are those of Vladimir Gabrielyan and Sergey Merzlyakov, respectively deputy chief executive and senior executive of the country’s largest social network, Vkontakte. Both died in a tragic accident: the two were participating in an expedition in the autonomous region of Nenets, in the Russian Arctic, when the amphibious off-road vehicles they were traveling on capsized in the Bolshaya Bugryanitsa River.
Dragged into the sea, they had no escape, while the other members of the expedition, including Gabrielyan’s wife, were rescued and rescued. The details are still few and nothing suggests that it was not really an accident. But the doubt remains, even in light of the unclear outlines of the events that involved other Russian leaders. Like the death of Andrei Krukowski, manager of a Gazprom tourist village, who fell off a cliff in Sochi in early May. And, above all, like the suicides of Gazprom executives Leonid Shulman, in January, and Alexander Tyulyakov, found hanged in the garage the day after the start of the Ukrainian invasion, along with that of energy magnate Mikhail Watford, who died three days after Tyulyakov.
Suspicions have also been raised for the former president of the gas company, Novatek, Sergey Protosenya, the billionaire Vasily Melnikov and the former vice president of Gazprombank Vladislav Avayev: all found lifeless along with their families, in apparent murder-suicides.