Another top Gazprom manager found dead in St. Petersburg

The body of Yuri Voronov, 61, the head of the Astra Shipping company, which was in charge of Gazprom's Arctic contracts, was found dead in a St. Petersburg suburb.

According to MK, Voronov was found in a swimming pool with a gunshot wound to the head. A Grand Power pistol was found next to his body.

Voronov's wife said he left for the Leningrad region on July 1. Before his departure he had a conflict with his business partners over the loss of money.

Govorit Moskva citing SPARK-Interfax notes that Astra-Shipping ended the year 2020 with a loss of 95 million rubles, and 2021 with a loss of 65 million rubles.

This is the fifth death in six months related to the Russian gas industry. In January, Leonid Shulman, a 60-year-old Gazprom top manager who used to work at Gazprom Transgaz, committed suicide in a cottage near St. Petersburg and left a suicide note.

On February 25, Alexander Tyulyakov, 61, Deputy Director General for Corporate Security of the United Accounting Center of Gazprom, was found dead in the same settlement. He had previously worked as Deputy Director General for Corporate Security and Human Resources at Gazprom Transgaz St. Petersburg, which exported and transported fuel to several Russian regions. Police tentatively determined that the man had committed suicide. Next to his body was a suicide note.

On April 18, Vladislav Avaev, a former vice president of Gazprombank, his daughter and wife were found dead in Moscow. The bodies were found in an apartment on Universitetsky Prospekt by a relative who had not been able to reach the Avayevs for several days. According to the preliminary investigation, Avayev shot his wife and 13-year-old daughter with a gun and then committed suicide. Police came to that that conclusion because the gun was in Avayev's hands. The door was locked from the inside and there were no traces of other people present in the house at the time of shooting. The Investigative Committee said the incident should be considered as a murder of two or more persons under part 2 of article 105 of the Criminal Code.

On April 21, former top manager of the company Novatek Sergey Protosenya, his wife and daughter were found dead in Spain. Their bodies were found in a house in Lloret de Mar (Girona province). Protocenya had a 400-million-euro fortune and lived in France. The family came to Spain for the Easter holidays. The police were considering a theory that Protocenya might have killed his wife and daughter and then committed suicide.