Accidental defenestration and murder-suicides too common among Russian oligarchs and Putin critics?

After the chairman of the board of Russia's largest private oil company died in what Russian news agencies cited as an accidental fall from a hospital window, questions were again raised over whether suspicious deaths among Russian oligarchs and critics of President Vladimir Putin have become all too common to be completely coincidental.

Initially, a statement by his company Lukoil said Ravil Maganov “passed away after a severe illness” on Thursday but did not give further details.

Russian news reports later stated his body was found on the grounds of Moscow's Central Clinical Hospital, where Russia's political and business elite are often treated. 

Putin went to the same hospital on Friday to lay flowers beside the casket of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who died while receiving treatment on Tuesday.

Maganov appeared to have fallen from a sixth-story window, the reports said. Some sources claimed he tripped and fell while smoking, stating a pack of cigarettes was found by the window. The news site RBK also said police were investigating the possibility of suicide.

Lukoil was one of a few Russian companies to publicly call for an end to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, calling in March for the “immediate cessation of the armed conflict”.

Incidentally, Maganov was not the first Lukoil official to die under suspicious circumstances since Kremlin's full-scale aggression against its western neighbour began in late February.

A former top manager Aleksandr Subbotin was found dead in the basement of a residence in a Moscow suburb in May. 

Russian news reports said the house belonged to a self-styled healer, Shaman Magua, who practised purification rites. 

Magua testified that Subbotin came to his house under the influence of