Six Russian billionaires close to the Kremlin and their families have died in mysterious circumstances in recent weeks, is it all due to suicide or family crimes, or is it due to orchestrated operations?
A question that French Le Figaro tried to answer, initially explaining that a series of suicides among the so-called Russian oligarchs had been revealed since the beginning of Moscow's war on Ukraine, and what is surprising about this is the suspicious similarity of the circumstances of the death of these rich people, according to the newspaper.
Each time, says Le Figaro, investigators note that the manner in which the operations took place suggests suicide or a family crime, but the features of the victims and their proximity to the Kremlin, as well as the sequence of these deaths, are suspicious.
The former CEO of Novatek, Sergey Protosinya, was found on April 20th, hanged in the garden of a luxury home in Lloret del Mar, Spain, along with the stabbed bodies of his wife and daughter.
The day before that, that is, April 19, the body of Vladislav Avaev, the former vice-chairman of the Russian "Gazprom" bank, was found lying on the ground with a pistol next to him, and the bodies of his wife and daughter. Several bullets penetrated the bodies of each of them, as it turned out. The apartment was sealed from the inside, which made the police likely to commit suicide.
The mystery does not stop there, as Le Figaro says that the number of those who have been confirmed dead in these circumstances since the start of the war is five, in addition to another who died just days before the war.
On March 24, it was revealed the "suicide" of billionaire Vasily Melnikov in Nizhny Novgorod, western Russia, after he stabbed his wife and two children.
On February 28, Ukrainian-born billionaire Mikhail Watford hanged himself in the garage of his home in Surrey, near London, and two executives of the gas giant Gazprom in the preceding weeks, Leonid Shulman, the company's managing director, committed suicide on 30 Last January, he was found in his bathroom with a suicide note next to him.
On February 25, a day after Russia launched war on Ukraine, Gazprom deputy director Alexander Tyuliakov hanged himself in the garage of his chalet near Saint Petersburg.
According to the independent Russian newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, forensic experts attended the scene before Gazprom's security services expelled them and closed the crime scene.
Here, Le Figaro wondered: Could Western sanctions on the Russian oligarchy push them to suicide?
And is there a connection between these deaths, which could be disguised crimes? She answers that in the context of the war in Ukraine, which puts pressure on Russian businessmen and forces them to reaffirm their loyalty to President Vladimir Putin, this wave of suicides raises questions, especially since Wealthy Russian Roman Abramovich also claims he was poisoned after a meeting in Ukraine.
The Warsaw Institute, a research center based in Poland, sees the recorded suicides as "suspicious", especially since four of those who died were linked to major companies operating in the Russian energy sector, wondering, "Who did this and why?"