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A prominent Russian tycoon, Sergey Protosenya, takes his own life after killing his wife and daughter. The news bears similarities to the April 19 death in Moscow of another key Russian executive: Vladislav Avayev, a former Kremlin adviser and former vice president of Gazprombank.
Protosenya was found dead at his villa in Lloret de Mar, Spain. According to Spanish TV channel Telecinco, the businessman, whose fortune is estimated at around 400 million euros, “killed his wife Natalia and their 18-year-old daughter with an ax while they were sleeping,” according to initial investigations. Later he would have hanged himself in the garden.”
Spanish police found a knife and an ax with traces of blood next to Protosenya’s body. The family would go to Lloret de Mar to spend Holy Week. Another son would remain at the family’s habitual residence in France. In the past, Protosenya held the role of vice president of Russian giant Novatek for seven years: the largest independent company in Russia producing liquefied natural gas and the seventh largest in the world by production volume.
The tragedy of Protosenya’s family comes just two days after that of Vladislav Avayev, who was found dead in his apartment in a Moscow skyscraper next to the bodies of his pregnant wife and 13-year-old daughter. In this case, too, everything would point to a homicide, even if the investigators did not exclude any indications.
