Yuri Voronov, head of a logistics company that had lucrative contracts with Gazprom, was found dead in a swimming pool at his home in an upscale suburb near St. Petersburg. He reportedly died of a gunshot wound to the head. Mr. Voronov was the founder and CEO of the transport and logistics company Astra-Shipping, which worked with Gazprom in the Arctic. According to the Russian media outlet 47news, a grand power pistol was found near the pool and several shell casings were found at the bottom. He was found around 2pm on Monday. Mr. Voronov’s widow reportedly told police that her husband had been drinking heavily recently because of a dispute with his contractors and associates. His death is at least the sixth linked to the Russian gas industry in recent months. Leonid Shulman, head of Gazprom Invest’s transport service, was found dead near Leningrad on January 30, 2022. Just a month after that, Alexander Tyulakov, deputy general director of Gazprom, was found dead in his garage on February 25. Mikhail Watford, a Ukrainian-born Russian billionaire who was not connected to Gazprom but made his fortune through oil and gas, was found dead at his home in Surrey, England on February 28. Surrey Police are not treating the death as suspicious. Sergey Protosenya was found dead along with his wife and daughter in Spain (Protosenya family) The bodies of former Gazprombank vice president Vladislav Avayev, his wife and daughter were found in Moscow on April 18. Igor Volobuev, a former vice president of Gazprombank, told CNN he did not believe the deaths were a murder-suicide, as police had suggested. “His job was to deal with private banking, that means dealing with VIP clients,” he said. “He was responsible for very large sums of money. So, did he kill himself? I do not think. “I think he knew something and that he was some kind of danger.” A day later, the top manager at gas producer Novatek, which is partly owned by Gazprom, Sergey Protosenya was found dead along with his wife and daughter in Spain. Mr Protosenya was found hanged in an apartment in Lloret de Mar, a seaside town in Catalonia, and his wife and daughter died of stab wounds. Their deaths have been investigated as a murder-suicide.
