Another top executive at Russia‘s second largest oil company has died mysteriously – the third tycoon at Lukoil to perish under suspicious circumstances within a year and a half.

Vladimir Nekrasov, 66, chairman of the Lukoil board of directors, died ‘suddenly’, with Russian state media reporting the ‘preliminary’ conclusion of doctors was that Nekrasov suffered ‘acute heart failure’.

His death follows that of Ravil Maganov, 67, at Central Clinical Hospital, also known as the Kremlin clinic, in September last year.

Officially, Maganov had been in hospital for a longstanding heart problem and fell from a sixth floor window, dying on the spot.

On the same morning, Putin – who had earlier decorated Maganov with a top honour – swept into the hospital to pay his final respects to Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, who had died the same week.

Billionaire Alexander Subbotin, 43, also linked to energy giant Lukoil where he was a top manager, was found dead in May after ‘taking advice from shamans’.

One theory is that Subbotin – who also owned a shipping company – was poisoned by toad venom triggering a heart attack.

Vladimir Nekrasov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Lukoil

Vladimir Nekrasov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Lukoil (R) pictured with Dmitry Medvedev (L)

Lukoil vice-president Ravil Maganov (R), pictured with Vladimir Putin (L)

Lukoil top manager Alexander Subbotin

Lukoil initially appeared less than loyal to Putin when the war started, demanding negotiations to end the fighting.

One week into the fighting, the company’s board including both Nekrasov and Maganov issued a statement on Putin’s invasion which ‘expresses its concern over the ongoing tragic events in Ukraine and its deepest sympathy to all those affected by this tragedy.

‘We are in favour of an early cessation of the armed conflict and fully support its resolution through the negotiation process and diplomatic means.’

There have been claims of ‘creeping nationalisation’ at Lukoil.

Nekrasov – who had been honoured by former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev – had taken over from Maganov as chairman.

At the time he was Lukoil’s vice president, and had previously been awarded The Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 4th degree.

Nekrasov, who held two separate EU passports, for Austria and the Czech Republic, as well as his Russian citizenship, avoided sanctions by the West over the war.

There has been a spate of deaths of prominent Russians linked to the energy and finance sectors since the start of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. 

Among other cases, in April wealthy Vladislav Avayev, 51, a former Kremlin official, appeared to have taken his own life after killing his wife Yelena, 47, and daughter, 13.

He had high level links to leading Russian financial institution Gazprombank.

Friends have disputed reports that he was jealous after his wife admitted she was pregnant by their driver.

There are claims he had access to the financial secrets of the Kremlin elite.

Several days later multimillionaire Sergey Protosenya, 55, was found hanged in Spain, after allegedly killing his wife Natalia, 53, and their teenage daughter, Maria, with an axe in a grisly murder-suicide. 

He was a former deputy chairman of Novatek, a company also closely linked to the Kremlin.

As with Avayev, it is suggested this may have been an assassination made to appear like a murder-suicide.

Yevgeny Palant, 47, a mobile phone multi-millionaire, and his wife Olga, 50, both Ukrainian-born, were found with multiple knife wounds by their daughter Polina, 20.

Former Kremlin official and Gazprombank vice-president Vladislav Avayev, 51, appeared to have taken his own life after killing his wife and one of his daughters in April

Russian gas tycoon Sergey Protosenya (pictured), his wife Natalya, 53, and their teenage daughter Maria were found dead in their Spanish mansion

Ukrainian born multi-millionaire Yevgeny Palant, 47, and his wife Olga Palant, 50, were found stabbed to death in their family house in Moscow region

Other notable murky deaths of Russian elites include Dmitry Zelenov, a real estate tycoon, who died on December 9 in the French Riviera town of Antibes.

The circumstances around the real estate tycoon’s death are remarkably similar to those of Anatoly Gerashchenko, the former head of Moscow’s Aviation Institute (MAI) who is said to have tumbled down a flight of stairs at the institute’s headquarters in the Russian capital in September.

‘On September 21, 2022, Anatoly Nikolaevich Gerashchenko, Doctor of Technical Sciences, professor, adviser to the rector of the Moscow Aviation Institute, passed away as a result of an accident,’ the organisation’s press service said. 

‘This is a colossal loss for the MAI and the scientific and pedagogical community.’

MAI is one of Russia’s leading scientific research universities responsible for the development of aerospace technology and is closely linked to Putin’s Defence Ministry.

Gerashchenko, 73, spent a lifetime working with the institute, attending the university as an engineer before working his way up to run the operation for eight years.

He had received Russia’s Medal of the Order for Services to the Fatherland, First Class, and was a distinguished professor with more than 50 scientific publications who remained on as an influential advisor after retiring in 2015.

The oligarch, 50, was out to dinner with some friends when he began feeling unwell and tumbled down a flight of stairs, sustaining serious head injuries, according to Russian news outlet Baza and local French outlet Var Matin.

He was rushed to hospital but doctors were unable to save him and his death was confirmed by the public prosecutor in the nearby municipality of Grasse the following day.

Russian oligarch Dmitry Zelenov died in France after allegedly falling down a flight of stairs

Anatoly Gerashchenko, the former head of Moscow’s Aviation Institute (MAI) reportedly slipped and tumbled down a flight of stairs at the institutes headquarters in the Russian capital 

Ivan Pechorin (L), point man for Vladimir Putin’s development of the Arctic, died after ‘falling overboard’ into the sea from a boat near Vladivostok. Igor Nosov (R), CEO of the Corporation for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, also died in his early 40s, reportedly from a ‘stroke’

The circumstances around the real estate tycoon’s death are remarkably similar to those of Anatoly Gerashchenko, the former head of Moscow’s Aviation Institute (MAI) who is said to have tumbled down a flight of stairs at the institute’s headquarters in the Russian capital in September.

‘On September 21, 2022, Anatoly Nikolaevich Gerashchenko, Doctor of Technical Sciences, professor, adviser to the rector of the Moscow Aviation Institute, passed away as a result of an accident,’ the organisation’s press service said. 

‘This is a colossal loss for the MAI and the scientific and pedagogical community.’

MAI is one of Russia’s leading scientific research universities responsible for the development of aerospace technology and is closely linked to Putin’s Defence Ministry.

Gerashchenko, 73, spent a lifetime working with the institute, attending the university as an engineer before working his way up to run the operation for eight years.

He had received Russia’s Medal of the Order for Services to the Fatherland, First Class, and was a distinguished professor with more than 50 scientific publications who remained on as an influential advisor after retiring in 2015.

Gerashchenko’s highly suspicious death came less than two weeks after Vladimir Putin‘s point man for developing Russia’s vast Arctic resources ‘fell overboard’ while sailing off the country’s Pacific coast.

Ivan Pechorin, 39, was managing director of Putin’s Far East and Arctic Development Corporation and had recently attended a major conference hosted by the Kremlin warmonger in Vladivostok.

The pair are the latest in a long line of senior officials from Russia’s energy, technology and finance sectors linked to the Kremlin to die in suspicious circumstances in recent months.

Pechorin fell off the side of a boat in the waters close to Russky Island near Cape Ignatiev, said Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda.

His body was found after a search lasting more than a day.

‘Ivan’s death is an irreparable loss for friends and colleagues, a great loss for the corporation,’ an official statement  from the corporation read.

‘We offer our sincere condolences to the family and friends.’

The corporation’s former CEO Igor Nosov, 43, also died suddenly in February, reportedly from a stroke.