A bunch of Russian oligarchs have mysteriously died since Russia’s war on Ukraine. Now, former top manager and executive Alexander Subbotin from Russia’s largest company, Lukoil, has also been found dead.
Around seven Russian oligarchs have been found dead since the beginning of the year. Subbotin was the seventh.
Subbotin was found dead on Sunday, 8 May, in a shaman’s home in Mytishchi, a city northeast of Moscow, according to local media reports. He apparently went there to get a ‘cure for his hangover’.
As per the Russian local media reports, the shaman made a small incision in Subbotin’s skin to inject venom to induce vomiting. But instead of vomiting, Subbotin experienced severe chest pains, leading to a rapid deterioration of his condition.
Instead of alerting emergency services, the shaman recommended that Subbotin should rest at home. The next morning, Subbotin was found dead, apparently from a heart attack.
Bill Browder, a financier who once invested in foreign portfolios in Russia, and a driving force behind the landmark Magnitsky Act in the US and Europe, said that people should assume the worst “any time you see a wealthy Russian dying in suspicious circumstances.”
“There has been enough empirical evidence of assassinations organised by the Kremlin or business rivals in Russia, to make it likely that these were murders and not suicides and other explanations that have been bandied about by the Russian authorities,” Browder added.
According to local reports, Russian authorities have since launched a criminal investigation after Subbotin’s body was found in a basement used for ‘Jamaican voodoo rituals’.