Vitaly Robertus, 54, would be the fourth Lukoil director to die in two years.
Russian media reported on Thursday March 14, 2024, the sudden death of Vitaly Robertus, vice-president of the oil and gas giant Lukoil. According to these media, the director committed suicide in his office this week.
Local media reported that Vitaly Robertus complained of headaches and asked for medication before going to his office.
He was later found hanging in the room.
“He did not come out for several hours and did not answer his phone. The employees decided to go to his office and found his body. The senior manager committed suicide by asphyxiation. He worked in the ‘business for around 30 years’, writing the Russian media Baza on Telegram, to report the death of the director.
In March 2022, the board of directors of the private company called for an end to the conflict in Ukraine.
He had expressed his “empathy for all the victims affected by this tragedy” and called for a “resolving issues through serious negotiations and diplomacy”.
The company, whose production is estimated at 2% of the world’s crude oil, has suffered greatly from the sanctions imposed on Moscow by the United States following the invasion of Ukraine.
However, the energy giant has not suffered sanctions from the EU.
Vitaly Robertus is the fourth director of Lukoil and the latest in a long list of tycoons and billionaires to die suddenly since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022.
Former Lukoil director Alexander Subbotin, 43, was found dead in May 2022 in the basement of a house in the town of Mytishchi, the victim of a heart attack believed to have been provoked by medication.
The company’s former president, Ravil Maganov, 67, died in September 2022 after falling from a window at the Moscow Central Clinical Hospital.
At the end of October 2023, Vladimir Nekrasov, the chairman of the board of directors of Lukoil, died of heart failure at the age of 66, according to the company.
