Russian exec who fell to death 'was killed with Putin's knowledge'

Russian oil firm chief who fell to his death from sixth-floor hospital window after criticising Ukraine war ‘was beaten up and killed with Putin’s knowledge’, anti-Kremlin sources claim

• Ravil Maganov fell to his death from Moscow Central Clinical Hospital yesterday
• Officials say the oil tycoon fell while smoking but others say he was pushed 
• Anti-Putin Telegram channel claims he was killed with Putin’s knowledge 
• His firm Lukoil was one of the few major companies to call for end of Ukraine war 

The Russian oil tycoon who fell to his death from the sixth floor of a Moscow hospital yesterday was assassinated ‘with Vladimir Putin’s knowledge’, an alleged ex-Kremlin insider has claimed.

Ravil Maganov, 67, chairman of Russian oil giant Lukoil, died on the spot after suspiciously plunging from the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow at around 7.30am local time yesterday.

Russian state media quickly said his death was a suicide but law enforcement sources said there was no suicide note and there were no CCTV cameras on the section of the building where Maganov fell.

General SVR, a Russian Telegram channel which regularly posts alleged insider information about Putin and the Kremlin, said Maganov was ‘beaten’ before he was ‘thrown out of a window’.

His company Lukoil was one of the few major Russian companies to call for the end of fighting in Ukraine after Moscow invaded.

Russian oil tycoon Ravil Maganov (pictured with Putin in 2019) who fell to his death from the sixth floor of a Moscow hospital yesterday was assassinated

He died on the spot after suspiciously plunging from the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow (pictured) 

His death is the latest of a number of top Russian officials who have died in suspicious circumstances in recent months

General SVR said: ‘The reason for the murder was Maganov’s ‘special opinion’ different from the opinion of Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the creeping nationalisation of Lukoil.

‘Putin not only knew about the preparation of the assassination attempt, but also gave his consent by approving the method and timing of the liquidation.’

The anti-Putin channel gave no evidence for its allegation, nor additional detail, but does claim inside knowledge from the Kremlin, which is reportedly seeking to shut it down.

The Telegram channel has previously published claims about Putin’s alleged illnesses and other oil tycoons who have died mysteriously in recent months.

While some are sceptical of General SVR, others say it is one of the few prominent anti-Putin channels in Russia that provides an insight into the true goings-on at the Kremlin.

One report in May said the mysterious deaths of multiple Russian businessmen linked to Gazprom were carried out by the FSB, its director Alexander Bortnikov and Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev, with Putin’s approval.

Maganov’s company Lukoil was one of the few major Russian companies to call for the end of fighting in Ukraine after Moscow invaded

The Telegram claimed: ‘It should be understood that the financing of secret operations [of the security services and armed forces] took place precisely through the structures of Gazprom and Novatek, and Gazprombank played a central role, and the active attempts of the Russian leadership to withdraw Gazprombank from sanctions are connected with this.

‘At the end of last year, Putin was informed about the leak of information about the financing of secret operations and… the scheme of financing the agents of the 5th FSB service through employees of Gazprom structures.’

An investigation took place, claimed the report. The deaths followed. ‘Putin approved the entire list for liquidation without looking,’ it was alleged.

Putin’s bloody ‘housekeeping’ is corroborated in Catherine Belton’s recent, highly acclaimed book, Putin’s People: How The KGB Took Back Russia And Then Took On The West.

Hours after Maganov’s body was found yesterday, Putin was at the same Central Clinical Hospital to pay his respects to the final Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who died there on Tuesday.

Hours after Maganov’s body was found yesterday, Putin was at the same Central Clinical Hospital

Officially police are investigating Maganov’s fall and are interrogating staff and patients at the Moscow hospital, as pro-state media outlets appeared in unison to stress there was nothing suspicions.

They noted that the oil executive – close to Lukoil’s oligarch founder Vagit Alekperov – had been suffering from heart problems.

The main public version of his death is that he took his own life while having an early morning smoke, with his wife in the next room at the hospital.

His death came on Alekperov’s 72nd birthday.

The theory Maganov’s demise was an assassination was echoed by Anastasia Kashevarova, co-founder of independent Daily Storm, and a previous advisor to close Putin ally Vyacheslav Volodin, powerful speaker of the Russian parliament.

‘It turned out that this was not a natural death, but a man-made one,’ she posted to her 36,800 Telegram followers.

‘Moreover, the death [was] on the birthday of Lukoil co-owner Vagit Alekperov.

‘Moreover, death [was] on the day of Putin’s arrival to say goodbye to Gorbachev.

‘This is some kind of ‘hello’ to our structures. But from whom?’

The dead tycoon’s younger brother Nail Maganov, 64, declined to comment but a source close to his Tatneft oil company was quoted by Readovka as saying: ‘His departure is certainly a tragedy, but it [such tragedies] happens.’

Nail is the head of another oil company Tatneft, was awarded the Order of Alexander Nevsky – a medal bestowed to civil servants for 20 years or more of highly meritorious service – in 2019 by Putin. 

His wife Fania is the head of the English First language school in Almetyevsk while his son Ravil is a racing car driver.

His death is the latest of a number of top Russian officials who have died in suspicious circumstances in recent months – with many mysteriously falling out of windows.

Maganov is also now among a series of Russian energy tycoons killed in suspicious circumstances.

An anti-Putin, Latvian-American businessman was found dead in Washington DC, US, on August 14 after he fell from the window of a luxury apartment building. 

Dan Rapoport, 52, was found outside 2400 M Apartments on August 14th shortly before 6pm. His body was discovered in the street along with his cracked cellphone, $2,620 cash, a keyring with a lanyard and a cracked white headphone.

Rapoport, a businessman who ran the iconic Soho Rooms nightclub in Moscow, lived in DC from 2012 until 2016 with his first wife, Irina. 

Dan Rapoport was found dead outside the apartment building in DC where police say he was living. He fell to his death on August 14th

The eight-floor apartment building that Rapoport jumped to his death from, according to police 

Until this year, he had been living in Kyiv with his second wife, Ukrainian virologist Alena, and their young daughter. When was broke out in February, he sent them to Denmark and he returned to the US, planning to bring them over.

It was initially reported that Rapoport killed himself after setting his dog, Boy, free carrying a suicide note and cash.

His widow, Alena, says he did not kill himself and that Pugacheva’s sources are off.  

Three days before his death, Rapoport posted a haunting image on Facebook of Marilyn Brando as Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now with the words: ‘The horror, the horror.’ 

He had become obsessed with the war in Ukraine and Putin’s Army, and had always been an outspoken critic of the regime. 

In December, a Russian nationalist who criticised Putin and predicted civil war also mysteriously fell to his death from a fifth-floor window in Moscow.

Yegor Prosvirnin, 35, from Vladivostok, Russia, was found naked ‘under the windows of a residential building’ on Tverskaya Street in the centre of Moscow.

Mr Prosvirnin allegedly threw a ‘knife and gas canister’ from the fifth floor window, whilst neighbours heard ‘screaming and swearing’ before he fell, according to BBC Russia. 

Yegor Prosvirnin, 35, from Vladivostok, Russia, fell to his death from a fifth-floor window in Moscow on December 27

Mr Prosvirnin (pictured) founded the controversial right-wing blog Sputnik and Pogrom, which supported the annexation of Crimea

Mr Prosvirnin founded the controversial right-wing blog Sputnik and Pogrom and predicted the Russian Federation would ‘collapse’ while heavily criticising Putin and predicting a civil war.

During the Covid pandemic, there were a series of mysterious deaths were patients were found dead after jumping out of hospital windows in Russia – like in the case Maganov. There was no suggestion the LUKOIL chairman was suffering from Covid. 

A top Russian scientist with close links to Edinburgh University who was ‘working on a Covid-19 vaccine’ was found dead in suspicious circumstances in St Petersburg in December 2020.

Biologist Alexander ‘Sasha’ Kagansky, 45, best known for his work on fighting cancer, was reported to have fallen in his underwear from a 14th floor window of a high rise residential building.

He also had a stab wound on his body, according to Moskovsky Komsomolets (MK).

Biologist Alexander ‘Sasha’ Kagansky, 45, best known for his work on fighting cancer, was reported to have fallen in his underwear from a 14th floor window of a high rise residential building 

The death follows six Russians plunging to their deaths from hospital windows earlier that year. 

Five of the victims were being treated for coronavirus whilst one victim was a doctor who had complained about PPE shortages. Another doctor fell from a hospital window, but he survived.

In the last year, there have been multiple mystery deaths among some of Putin’s closest allies and associates – especially among gas executives like Magonov.

In May, billionaire Alexander Subbotin, 43, a former top executive with energy giant Lukoil, was found dead under mysterious circumstances.   

The oligarch, who owned a lucrative shipping company, was reportedly treated with toad venom – put into an incision that had been made in his skin.

Soon afterwards, Subbotin had a heart attack and was given a tranquilliser from the herb valerian.

Billionaire Alexander Subbotin (pictured), 43, a former top executive with Kremlin-friendly energy giant Lukoil, is the latest in a number of high profile, mysterious deaths since Vladimir Putin ordered his forces to invade Ukraine

The mogul had sought the advice of shamans to cure a hangover, according to the official version of events, but his death comes as the deaths of other prominent tycoons are under the spotlight which critics of Putin’s regime say could be murders.

In April, Sergei Protosenya, 55, was found hanged outside a Spanish villa, with his wife Natalia, 33, and their teenage daughter Maria found hacked to death with an axe inside.

Investigators initially assumed that Protosenya, who had a fortune of £330million, had killed himself in the Lloret det Mar villa in the Costa Brava.

But local reports said evidence does not conclusively point towards this explanation, as no suicide note was found in the property and it appeared steps had been taken to ensure there were no fingerprints on the murder weapons.

The businessman had served as deputy chairman of natural gas company Novotek, a company closely linked to the Kremlin.

Sergey Protosenya (right), 55, who had a fortune of over £330 million, is believed to have hacked his wife Natalia (centre) and their 18-year-old daughter to death before hanging himself in the courtyard of his Lloret de Mar villa on Spain’s Costa Brava (pictured together)

Vladislav Avayev (pictured), 51, was found in his elite Moscow penthouse alongside his wife Yelena, 47, and daughter, Maria, 13

Just days earlier, the body of Vladislav Avayev, 51, was found in his elite Moscow penthouse alongside his wife Yelena, 47, and daughter, Maria, 13, in another apparent murder-suicide.

Avayev was previously a vice president at Gazprombank – a bank that was created to work for Russian gas giant Gazprom – and had also been a Kremlin official.

On February 25, the day after the Ukraine war started, the body of Alexander Tyulakov, 61, a senior Gazprom financial and security official at deputy general director level, was discovered by his lover. 

His neck was in a noose in his £500,000 home.

Earlier this year, Alexander Tyulakov (left) and Leonid Shulman (right) also died in suspicious circumstances

Yet reports say he had been badly beaten shortly before he ‘took his own life’, leading to speculation he was under intense pressure.

In the same elite Leninsky gated housing development in Leningrad region three weeks earlier, Leonid Shulman, 60, head of transport at Gazprom Invest, was found dead with multiple stab wounds in a pool of blood on his bathroom floor.

A note was found, the contents of which have not been disclosed, and the Russian Investigative Committee reportedly refused to discuss the deaths.

A knife was found on the bathtub, seemingly out of reach.

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