The vice president of the Russian Lukoil company found dead in his office
Vitaly Robertus, vice president of Russian oil and gas giant Lukoil, committed suicide suddenly in his office this week, Russian media reported on Thursday.
Just before his death, local media wrote that Robertus complained of headaches and asked for medication before going to his office, and was later found hanged in the room.
“The employees said that Robertus didn’t leave his office for several hours and did not answer his phone, so they decided to enter the office to find him strangled and dead.
Lukoil announced in a circular the death of Robertus on March 12.
In March 2022, the board of directors of the privately owned company called for an end to the conflict in Ukraine.
They expressed their “sympathy to all the victims affected by this tragedy” and urged that “the problems be resolved through serious and diplomatic negotiations”.
The company, whose production is estimated at about 2% of the world’s crude oil, suffered greatly from the sanctions imposed by the United States on Moscow following the invasion of Ukraine.
However, the energy giant was not subject to EU sanctions.
Robertus is the fourth director of Lukoil and the latest in a long list of businessmen and billionaires to die suddenly in mysterious circumstances since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
This incident wasn’t the first among the Russian giant oil company, officials; In May 2022, 43-year-old former Lukoil director Alexander Subbotin was found dead in the basement of a house in the town of Mytishchi of an alleged drug-induced heart attack.
In September 2022, Ravil Maganov, the former head of Lukoil, died at the age of 67 in September 2022 after falling from the window of the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow.
In late October 2023, Vladimir Nekrasov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Lukoil, died of what the company said was heart failure at the age of 66.
