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Six Russian businessmen die by apparent suicide in four months

Three of them allegedly also killed family members before taking their own lives

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Six Russian businessmen have died in a string of apparent suicides within the last four months.

According to CNN, three of the men allegedly also killed family members before taking their own lives. Four of them were associated with Russian government-owned energy giant Gazprom or one of its subsidiaries.

Gazprom Invest's head of transport Leonid Shulman was found dead in his cottage in the village of Leninsky near Leningrad on January 30.

Russian state media RIA Novosti reported that officials were investigating the death as a suicide after a note was found.

Less than a month later, top Gazprom executive Alexander Tyulakov was found dead in his garage in the same village on February 25. Novaya Gazeta, an independent Russian newspaper reported he died by suicide.

On February 28, Mikhail Watford, a Ukrainian-born Russian billionaire, was found dead in his home in Surrey, England.

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Owner of a medical supplies company Vasily Melnikov was found dead alongside his family in Nizhny Novgorod in late March. According to Russia's Investigative Committee, a 43-year-old man, his wife, 41, and two children aged four and 10 were found stabbed to death on March 23.

Two others died in April in apparent murder-suicides. Former Gazprombank vice president Vladislav Avayev was found dead at his Moscow apartment along with his wife and daughter on April 18.

The bodies of Sergey Protosenya, a former executive at the gas producer Novatek, which is partially owned by Gazprom, his wife and his daughter were found north of Barcelona on April 19.

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