The former dean of the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) has died, according to a statement from the organization, amid a recent spate of mysterious deaths among top Russian officials and executives.
Anatoly Gerashchenko “died in an accident” on September 21 and had served as rector of the institute from 2007 to 2015, according to the MAI website.
He spent 45 years of his life in the organization, raising the institute and was “Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor [and] Advisor to the Rector of MAI,” it added.
The institute’s website added that a commission has now been formed to investigate the incident, which will include representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science, the State Labor Inspectorate and the MAI.
Gerashchenko is at least the 10th influential Russian to reportedly die by suicide or in unexplained accidents since late January, with at least six linked to Russia’s two biggest energy companies.
Four of those six were linked to Russian state energy giant Gazprom or one of its subsidiaries, while the other two were linked to Lukoil, Russia’s largest private oil and gas company.
Earlier this year, the company took the unusual public stance of speaking out against Russia’s war in Ukraine, calling for support for the victims and an end to the conflict.
Lukoil chairman Ravil Maganov died in early September after falling from a hospital window in Moscow, according to Russian state news agency TASS.
In mid-September, Russian businessman Ivan Pechorin, who is the top director of the Corporation for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, was found dead in Vladivostok, according to Russian state media. Petorin drowned on September 10 near Cape Ignatiev in Vladivostok, regional media reported.
