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A Russian MP has become the latest high-profile energy executive to die since Vladimir Putin launched his brutal war in Ukraine.
Nikolay Petrunin, 47, dubbed the ‘Gas wonderkid’, allegedly died from complications from Covid after being in a coma for a month, although this has not been confirmed.
There has been a spate of mysterious deaths associated with Gazprom and energy officials in recent months, with business chiefs falling out of windows, drowning in swimming pools and carrying out vicious murder suicides.
But critics fear Putin’s shadowy FSB could be behind the killings, with the Russian tyrant regularly accused of ordering the deaths of dissidents, which he has denied.
Petrunin, a multi-millionaire father-of-three, was a former top gas industry executive who became deputy chairman of the Russian parliament’s powerful energy committee, and was seen as a Putin loyalist and ‘political prodigy’.
Russian MP Nikolay Petrunin (pictured) has become the latest high-profile energy executive to die since Vladimir Putin launched his brutal war in Ukraine
His businesses built gas pipelines for major Russian energy operators and he had links to Kremlin gas behemoth Gazprom – now starving the West of Russian supplies over the war – and Rosneft.
He declared an annual salary of up to £1.75million and had been an MP in the Tula region since 2016, and was married to Albina Petrunina, a former policewoman holding the rank of major.
She later became co-owner of MetaTrendCity company, along with influential Gazprom manager Vladimir Vasiliev.
As well as gas – as boss of PromGazService – he formerly had businesses linked to beer and tourism.
His death was confirmed by his assistants and comes after a number of other Gazprom-linked bosses came to a suspicious end.
This week it emerged that a leading judge, Sergey Maslov, 42, was killed at or near the epicentre of the Crimean Bridge blast.
Sergey Maslov, 42, an ‘incorruptible’ Russian judge who oversaw cases involving the country’s elite, was reportedly killed in the Crimea Bridge blast
Ravil Maganov, chairman of Russian oil giant Lukoil, died after falling from a window at Central Clinical Hospital, Moscow, on September 1 (pictured with Vladimir Putin in 2019)
He had overseen cases involving energy giant Gazprom and the Moscow city government at Moscow Arbitration Court.
A legal source said he was ‘unusually independent-minded and incorruptible’ who ruled on ‘sensitive cases’ involving business disputes.
On September 1, oil tycoon Ravil Maganov, 67, fell to his death from the sixth floor window of a Moscow hospital.
One report says the chairman of Lukoil – Russia’s second largest oil company – was ‘beaten’ before he was ‘thrown out of a window’, however this was not confirmed officially.
His company had voiced opposition to the war in Ukraine.
Strangely, Putin arrived at the elite Central Clinical Hospital very soon after Maganov’s body was found to pay his last respects to final Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who had died at the same hospital.
Yuri Voronov, 61, was found dead in August
Two more deaths of Gazprom-linked executives, Alexander Tyulakov (left) and Leonid Shulman (right) were reported in elite homes near St Petersburg, stoking suspicions that the deaths may well have been murders
In July, Yuri Voronov, 61, head of a transport and logistics company for a Gazprom-linked company, was found dead in his swimming pool, with a top criminologist friend warning of foul play.
Two more deaths of Gazprom-linked executives were reported in elite homes near St Petersburg amid suspicions that apparent suicides may have been murders.
Alexander Tyulakov, 61, a senior Gazprom financial and security official at deputy general director level, was discovered dead by his lover the day after war started in Ukraine in February.
His neck was in a noose in his £500,000 home .
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.
Billionaire Alexander Subbotin, 43 former top executive with energy giant Lukoil, died in May
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
Billionaire Alexander Subbotin, 43, also linked to Kremlin-friendly 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.
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 his luxury Spanish villa, after apparently killing his wife Natalia, 53, and their teenage daughter, Maria, with an axe.
Sergey Protosenya, 55, was found hanged in his luxury Spanish villa, after killing his wife Natalia, 53, and their teenage daughter, Maria, with an axe
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 last week
Ivan Pechorin, 39, ‘fell overboard’ to his death from a boat sailing off the country’s Pacific coast
He was a former deputy chairman of Novatek, a company also closely linked to the Kremlin.
There have also been questions over the death of Putin’s point man for developing Russia’s vast Arctic resources who ‘fell overboard’ to his death from a boat sailing off the country’s Pacific coast.
Ivan Pechorin, 39, had recently attended a major conference hosted by the Kremlin warmonger in Vladivostok.
The high-flyer was managing director of Putin’s Far East and Arctic Development Corporation.
And in another case a mobile phone multi-millionaire and his wife were found stabbed to death in another case that has raised questions.
Naked Yevgeny Palant, 47, and his wife Olga, 50, both Ukrainian-born, were found with multiple knife wounds by their daughter Polina, 20.
Immediate briefing to the media claimed the woman took her own life in a jealous rage after Palant said he was leaving her.
Yet this was strongly disputed by the couple’s best friend.