Russian Oligarch Found Dead in Moscow after Falling Out of Window

A former senior energy industry executive was found dead following a suspected suicide, Russia’s state media reported, in the latest mysterious death of one of the country’s elite.

Mikhail Rogachev, 64, who was the former vice president of the disbanded energy firm Yukos, died after falling from a window, the TASS and RIA Novosti news agencies reported at the weekend.

A law enforcement source told Tass that Rogachev’s body was found in Protopovsky Lane in the Russian capital and that “the main version of his death is suicide. The man suffered from cancer.”

The Telegram channel VCHK-OGPU, which claims to have links to Russian intelligence, said that while Rogachev had health problems in recent years “they were not critical” and he had been in touch with his family the previous night in which “there were no hints in his words about the possibility of death.”

The outlet said that scattered papers, some handwritten, were found on the floor of his residence in which Rogachev blamed his doctor for a botched operation, having undergone surgery in 2018. The Telegram channel also said that his body was found by a driver of the former deputy director of Russia’s foreign intelligence service (SVR).

Newsweek has contacted the SVR for comment by email.

Independent Russian outlet Novaya Gazyeta reported that on the day of his death he “had breakfast with his loved ones and was in a normal mood.”

Between 1996 and 2007, Rogachev worked for Yukos, which was owned by exiled Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was previously arrested and jailed on what were considered to be politically motived charges linked to his opposition to Vladimir Putin. The company was closed in 2007 and he was pardoned by Putin in 2013.

After his time at Yukos, Rogachev worked as executive director for innovation at private investment fund the Onexim Group, and he was also deputy general director of mining and metallurgical company Norilsk Nickel, Tass reported.

Rogachev was the latest high-profile figure among Russia’s elite to die in unexplained circumstances since the start of Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with those working for the country’s second-biggest oil firm, Lukoil, particularly affected.

Lukoil executive Ravil Maganov, 67, fell from a window of Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital in September 2022 in what Russian state media reported was a suicide. No suicide note was left and no CCTV footage of the section of the building where he fell was available.

The following month, Vladimir Nekrasov, the head of the board of directors at Lukoil, died after what initial medical reports suggested was “acute heart failure.” In March 2024, Lukoil vice president Vitaly Robertus died “suddenly” aged 54, the company announced without stating the cause of his death.