Russian oil executive dies after falling from Moscow window: Reports
A prominent Russian oil executive died on Thursday after reportedly falling out of a hospital window in Moscow, stoking suspicions of foul play, given how many vocal critics of the Kremlin have frequently been shot, poisoned or defenestrated.
WASHINGTON — A prominent Russian oil executive died Thursday morning after reportedly falling out of a hospital window in Moscow, stoking suspicions of foul play, given how frequently vocal critics of the Kremlin have been shot, poisoned or defenestrated.
Ravil Maganov, 67, was chairman of the board at Lukoil, the Russian energy giant. His death was reported by Russian news agency Interfax and confirmed by Western outlets.
In March, Lukoil criticized the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine launched at President Vladimir Putin’s insistence in late February. “We fully support its resolution through negotiations, by diplomatic means,” that statement said. It was a remarkable show of dissent in a nation where, even in peacetime, corporations and their leaders are expected to never contradict the Kremlin.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Ravil Maganov at the Kremlin in 2019. (Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)
The company’s chairman, Vagit Alekperov, resigned the following month.
His death took place at Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow, where the country’s power elite routinely receive treatment. Putin visited the hospital on the day of Maganov’s death to pay his respects to the late Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who died earlier this week.
People who knew Maganov said it was “highly unlikely he had committed suicide,” according to a Reuters report.
“Observers of such matters know that faulty windows are extremely common in the vicinity of Putin critics,” Nazir Afzal, a leading top British prosecutor, noted acidly on Twitter.
