CNN
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Russian businessman Ivan Pechorin, the top manager for the Corporation for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, has been found dead in Vladivostok, the latest in a string of mysterious deaths among Russian executives.

“On September 12, 2022, it became known about the tragic death of our colleague, Ivan Pechorin, Managing Director for the Aviation Industry of the Corporation for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic,” reads a statement from the company published Monday.

“Ivan’s death is an irreparable loss for friends and colleagues, a great loss for the corporation. We offer our sincere condolences to family and friends,” it said.

According to Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti, the administration of Vladivostok said a body was found near the village of Beregovoe. Pechorin drowned on September 10 near Cape Ignatyev in Vladivostok, regional media reports.

Pechorin is at least the ninth prominent Russian businessmen to have reportedly died by suicide or in unexplained accidents since late January, with six of them associated with Russia’s two largest energy companies.

Four of those six were linked to the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom or one of its subsidiaries, while the other two were associated with Lukoil, Russia’s largest privately owned 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 sympathy for the victims, and for the end of the conflict.

Lukoil’s chairman Ravil Maganov died at the beginning of September after falling out of the window of a hospital in Moscow, according to Russian state news agency TASS.