TEHRAN- Since February 2, 2022, shortly before the crisis in Ukraine began, there have been a series of suspicious deaths in Russia and other countries around the world.  

The common factor, tied to these deaths, is that they are all Russian and considered among the best capitalists of this country.  
The unexplained cases have continued to this day. Just recently, another two Russians have died, adding to a growing list comprising dozens of others. 

Anton Cherepennikov, a multimillionaire tech tycoon, was found dead at a property in Moscow on July 22, 2023. The cause of death has been reported as cardiac arrest.

Cherepennikov was among the Russian elites who were put in charge of monitoring internet traffic and wiretapping phones for surveillance purposes. 

On February 25, 2023, Cherepennikov and his business were added to the U.S. sanctions against Russia?, as part of Washington's ongoing efforts to weaken the Russian economy. Many of those that have been added to the U.S. sanctions list are close associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Just 48 hours before Cherepennikov death, another Russian billionaire and government official, Igor Kudryakov, was discovered dead in his Moscow residence. 
 
As noted, these sudden fatalities began since the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine, where the conflict has dragged on for more than one year and five months. 

Interestingly, the first suspicious deaths, which occurred amid the Western sanctions on Russian gas exports ahead of the European winter energy crisis, were confined to the managers of Russian gas firms.

Leonid Shulman, 60, served as the head of the transport service at Gazprom Invest, which handles investment projects for the energy giant Gazprom. His body was found on January 29, 2022, in the bathroom of a cottage in Vyborgsky district, north of Saint Petersburg, local news reported. 

On February 25, 2022, about three weeks after the start of the war, the body of 61-year-old Alexander Tyulakov, an executive and deputy manager for Gazprom, was found dead in the garage of his luxury Saint Petersburg home. Reports described the death as an apparent suicide.

On April 19, 2022, Sergei Protosenya, a 55-year-old former top manager of Russia’s largest liquefied natural gas producer Novatek, was found dead along with his wife and daughter at a villa in Spain. 
The value of Protosenya's assets was estimated to be $440 million.

In addition, the body of Vladislav Avayev, a former Kremlin official and ex-vice president at Gazprombank, was found dead in a Moscow apartment along with the bodies of his wife and daughter on April 18, 2022. Reports say it was suspected that the well-known banker shot dead his pregnant wife and their 13-year-old daughter before committing suicide. 

Energy director Yuri Voronov was found floating in a in a swimming pool at a complex on the outskirts of St. Petersburg in July with a gunshot wound to the head.  Investigators could not determine whether it was suicide or assassination. His wife has been cited as saying she believes he was the victim of fraud by his assistants.

Dan Rapoport, an oligarch born in Latvia, died on August 14, 2022, after falling out of his high-rise apartment in Washington DC last year, one kilometer from the White House. 

At the same time, Ravil Maganov, the head of a Russian oil company, died on September 1, 2022, after falling from the 6th floor of a building in Moscow.

Later, a prominent graphic designer would fall to his death from a balcony.

Meanwhile, at a similar time in France, Russian billionaire and real estate tycoon, Dmitry Zelenov, fell down a flight of stairs. He passed away at a hospital in Nice.

The body of Mikhail Watford, the Russian oil tycoon who made all his fortune from oil and gas, was found hanging inside the garage of his house in England.

Russian oligarch and the general director of a ski resort owned by Gazprom, Andrei Krukovsky, fell off a cliff to his death last May.

The Director of Aviation of the Russian Far East and Arctic Development Corporation (KRDV), Ivan Pechorin, died after falling out of a motorboat in the Sea of Japan last September. He was tasked by Putin to improve energy and mineral resources in eastern Russia to counter international sanctions. The 39-year-old businessman’s body washed up on shore two days later.

The former Head of the Moscow Aviation Institute, Anatoly Gerashchenko, 72, died last September after reportedly falling down the stairs inside the institute. He spent 45 years of his life working at the institute.

Vasily Melnikov, 43, along with his wife and two sons, were all reportedly stabbed to death last March in an apparent suicide. He was the owner of the medical equipment supplier company MedStom, and police found him dead in his home in Nizhny Novgorod, western Russia. 

Russian billionaire and Lukoil board member Alexander Subbotin died after reportedly being treated with toad venom through an incision made on his skin, which led to a heart attack. 

Ravil Maganov, CEO of the Russian oil company Lukoil, (the second largest energy company in Russia after Gazprom), who was also the vice president of this independent oil giant, fell from a hospital window in Moscow. 

Sputnik vaccine researcher and creator Andrey Botikov is found strangled to death. He was found dead at his home in Moscow and reportedly suffocated with a belt in his apartment. In 2021, Putin praised Botikov by awarding him with the medal of patriotism for his efforts in developing a coronavirus vaccine. 

There are three scenarios to be examined: Internal cleansing, suicide or a foreign conspiracy?

In the past year and a half, when Russian oligarchs, businessmen, bureaucrats, etc..  died due to incidents, including falling from windows, falling down stairs, poisoning, heart attacks, and suicide. The question that arises and raises more than one eyebrow is who was behind these painful events?  

Did they die a natural death? Were they victims of some policies by Moscow or the West?  

Questions that will be examined in the following three scenarios: 

Feasibility of natural death and suicide

As the crisis between Russia, Ukraine, and the West escalates, Russian oligarchs find themselves at the center of an international conflict. 

After the beginning of the Ukraine crisis, the West intensified the sanctions on Russian banks, and many Russians whom the Western media called close allies of Putin.  

It is estimated that the richest people in Russia have lost more than $38 billion in 2022 because of Western sanctions against Russia in retaliation for Moscow's "special military operation" in Ukraine, a matter that can be a reason for depression, natural death or suicide.
Also, in this scenario, it can be argued that at least some of these deaths are natural or accidental, given Russia's very low life expectancy and high rate of alcoholism.  The suicide rate among Russian men is believed to be among the highest in the world.

The author and military strategist Edward Luttwak points to a widespread disillusionment among the privileged elites that are dependent on the Russian government and says: "Imagine what happens to a globalized country when sanctions kick in, some of them will commit suicide."  

But the significant number of these untimely deaths requires the examination of two other scenarios.

Putin cleaning the inner ring

Some believe that President Putin would not hesitate to kill anyone who gets in his way or is no longer useful to him. Thereby, some believe that he is clearing his inner circle.  

In addition, sometimes the main purpose of terror is to send a message to others; a message that if you are not loyal anymore, we will kill you and your family. Sometimes, the goal is to eliminate a troublesome person.

From the point of view of the supporters of this argument, the Russian government acts like an octopus that identifies and destroys all opponents around the world with its powerful arms and sophisticated intelligence.

Terror campaign by the West aimed at weakening Russia

Supporters of this scenario believe that most of the people who died suspiciously during this period are Putin's relatives, even Anton Cherepennikov, who suffered a cardiac arrest in recent days. He was one of the key figures in Putin's spying operation for cleansing, and his name was on the U.S. sanctions list.  

So why should he be killed by Putin?!

In this scenario, the West has seen a solution to eliminate the capitalists and oligarchs of this country in order to make the anti-Russia sanctions more effective; those who can help the Kremlin soften the sanctions.  

In addition to the project of disempowering Russia to bypass the sanctions, the suspicious death of powerful and influential Russian oligarchs can create a platform for division and dissension within Russian territory.

This comes at the time of continued and escalating crisis in Ukraine.