Russian Railway Boss Found Dead
(UnitedVoice.com) – Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration, with its close and secretive links between state power and big business, can be a lucrative place for the country’s oligarchs. It can also be a dangerous place. It now appears the Kremlin’s notorious power struggles have claimed another victim.
Top Russian military chief found shot to death on his balcony https://t.co/udTvs45E18
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) September 29, 2022
Until September 28, Pavel Pchelnikov was communications director for Digital Logistics, part of the Russian Railways group. Around 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday, his body was found on the balcony of his central Moscow apartment; the Moscow Militia are investigating his death, and the media are reporting that his injuries suggested he had committed suicide.
Did he, though? Top Cargo 200, an open-source intelligence site that tracks senior Russian military officers and officials involved in the invasion of Ukraine, claims Pchelnikov had died of a gunshot wound. According to the site, Digital Logistics had been involved in protecting the rail network from Ukrainian hackers — and hadn’t been doing a great job. Cyber attacks had delayed supply shipments to Russian troops.
The seven-month war has certainly been a dangerous time for Putin’s business associates. No less than five oligarchs and senior executives — plus the wife and teenage daughter of one of them — have died in suspicious suicides or murders since January. Three of them worked for energy giant Gazprom; another worked for an oil firm, and the last was the founder of a Gazprom-linked logistics company. Has a run of bad luck hit Russia’s top businessmen, or is something more sinister going on?
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