Mystery as third Russian oil boss dies suddenly at company that criticised Putin’s Ukraine invasion

ANOTHER top executive at Russia’s second largest oil company has died, marking the third mysterious death in the last 18 months.

Vladimir Nekrasov, 66, chairman of the Lukoil board of directors, died “suddenly” – marking the latest in a series of high-profile deaths of Russian oil tycoons.

Many mysterious deaths have been linked to the energy sector since the start of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Russian state media said the “preliminary” conclusions of doctors was that Nekrasov suffered “acute heart failure” and died at his home in Moscow.

Nekrasov avoided sanctions from the West over the war in Ukraine – and is believed to have held two EU passports before his death.

Other than his Russian citizenship, he reportedly had passports for Austria and the Czech Republic.

A number of Putin regime critics have claimed the recent spate of deaths are murders, as Russia‘s paranoid head of state purges his inner circle.

Nekrasov’s death follows that of tycoon Ravil Maganov, 67, who fell from a window of Moscow’s elite Central Clinical Hospital, also known as the Kremlin clinic, in September last year.

There were suspicions of murder but officially Maganov had been in hospital for a “longstanding heart problem” and fell from a sixth floor window, dying on the spot.

Billionaire Alexander Subbotin, 43, also linked to energy giant Lukoil where he was a top manager, was found dead in May after “taking advice from shamans”.

One theory is that Subbotin – who also owned a shipping company – was poisoned by toad venom triggering a heart attack.

And the body of energy boss Igor Shkurko, 49, deputy general director of Yakutskenergo was discovered in his cell in a detention centre after he was accused of taking a bribe.

Experts believe the deaths of at least 39 previous deaths high profile figures – ranging from oligarchs to scientists and even generals – could show the shadowy and bloodstained hand of the Kremlin.

 – the so-called “Scarface” oligarch who sold Meghan Markle and Prince Harry their California mansion – died from sepsis after criticising Putin.

And meanwhile scientist  – who created the “Sputnik V” vaccine – was strangled with a belt in his apartment.

Jon Sweet, a retired US Army Military Intelligence Officer, and Mark Toth, a national security analyst, described Putin as running “modern-day FSB version of Murder Inc”.

Murder Inc. was an organised crime group that operated in the US – and is believed to have been responsible for more than 1,000 contact killings in the 1930s.

Sweet told The Sun Online: “Anyone seen as a potential threat seems to have an attraction to an open window.”