ONE of Vladimir Putin's cronies has died after he mysteriously "fell overboard" from a boat.
It is the seventh suspicious death within the Kremlin's inner circle in just a matter of months.
Ivan Pechorin – Putin's point man for developing Russia's vast Arctic resources – fell off the side of a boat in waters close to Russky Island, reports Russian paper Komsomolskaya Pravda.
His body was found after a search lasting more than a day.
The 39-year-old had recently attended a major conference hosted by the Kremlin warmonger in Vladivostok.
It comes just weeks after Ravil Maganov – chairman of the Russian oil giant Lukoil, a firm that openly criticised Putin's invasion of Ukraine – reportedly died after plunging from a hospital window.
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High-flyer Pechorin was managing director of Putin’s Far East and Arctic Development Corporation.
The corporation issued a statement about his “tragic death” while giving few details.
It said: “Ivan's death is an irreparable loss for friends and colleagues, a great loss for the corporation.
"We offer our sincere condolences to the family and friends.”
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Development of the Arctic – a rich source of oil and gas for Russia – is seen as essential amid sanctions and unprecedented economic problems facing Putin’s economy due to his war in Ukraine.
Pechorin also had responsibility for the air industry across the vast east of Russia, a sector under strain from Western economic curbs.
He recently addressed the Eastern Economic Forum led by Putin in a session aimed at beating sanctions called ‘Everyone has their Own Route: The Logistics of a Changed World’.
Pechorin is the latest in a series of unexplained deaths among Russian powerbrokers from just before and during the war.
In February the corporation’s CEO Igor Nosov, 43, diedsuddenly from a “stroke”.
There was also an Arctic linked to the death of Yevgeny Zinichev, 55, Emergencies Minister and a former Putin bodyguard.
A year ago he perished in a mystery fall at a waterfall in the Russian Arctic.
He was being groomed by Putin as his possible successor, some experts say, and there have been claims from a friend that he was murdered.
Putin appeared distraught at his funeral.
Meanwhile, one report said the chairman of Lukoil – Russia’s second largest oil company – was “beaten” before he was “thrown out of a window”, however this is not confirmed officially.
Putin arrived at the elite Central Clinical Hospital very soon after Maganov’s body was found to pay his last respects to final Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who had died at the hospital.
In July, Yuri Voronov, 61, head of a transport and logistics company for a Gazprom-linked company, was found dead in his swimming pool, with a leading friend who is a top criminologist warning of foul play.
Two more deaths of Gazprom-linked executives were reported in elite homes near St Petersburg amid suspicions that apparent suicides may have been murders.
Alexander Tyulakov, 61, a senior Gazprom financial and security official at deputy general director level, was discovered by his lover the day after war started in Ukraine in February.
His neck was in a noose in his £500,000 home .
Yet reports say he had been badly beaten shortly before he “took his own life”, leading to speculation he was under intense pressure.
KILLER IN THE KREMLIN
In the same elite Leninsky gated housing development in Leningrad region three weeks earlier, Leonid Shulman, 60, head of transport at Gazprom Invest, was found dead with multiple stab wounds in a pool of blood on his bathroom floor.
Billionaire Alexander Subbotin, 43, also linked to Kremlin-friendly 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.
In April, wealthy Vladislav Avayev, 51, a former Kremlin official, appeared to have taken his own life after killing his wife Yelena, 47, and daughter, 13.
He had high level links to leading Russian financial institution Gazprombank.
Friends have disputed reports that he was jealous after his wife admitted she was pregnant by their driver.
There are claims he had access to the financial secrets of the Kremlin elite.
Several days later multimillionaire Sergey Protosenya, 55, was found hanged in Spain.
He was a former deputy chairman of Novatek, a company also closely linked to the Kremlin.
His wife Natalia and and daughter Maria had been hacked to death in their beds with an axe in the Lloret de Mar on Spain’s Costa Brava, according to reports.
As with Avayev, it is suggested this may have been an assassination made to appear a murder-and-suicide.
Last week a mobile phone multi-millionaire and his wife were found stabbed to death in another case that has raised questions.
Naked Yevgeny Palant, 47, and his wife Olga, 50, both Ukrainian-born, were found with multiple knife wounds by their daughter Polina, 20.
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Immediate briefing to the media claimed the woman took her own life in a jealous rage after Palant said he was leaving her.
Yet this was strongly disputed by the couple’s best friend.
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