Real estate tycoon Dmitry Zelenov died on December 9 in the town of Antibes in France. He fell down the stairs at a friend’s house after feeling unwell at dinner with friends. He was rushed to the hospital and died the next day
Another Russian oligarch has died mysteriously. The death toll among the Russian elite continues to climb against the background of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. Real estate tycoon Dmitry Zelenov, 50, was out to dinner with some friends when he began to feel unwell and fell down the stairs, suffering serious head injuries, according to Russian news channel Baza and local French network Var Matin.
According to the report, he was rushed to the hospital but the doctors were unable to save him and his death was confirmed by the public prosecutor in the nearby municipality of Graça the next day.
According to the report, Zelenov underwent surgery related to undisclosed heart problems in the weeks leading up to his death, although no further information was provided. Zelenov was a co-founder of Don-Stroi, one of Moscow’s most significant investment and development empires. After founding Don-Stroi in 1994 shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Zelenov quickly amassed a fortune and regularly appeared on Forbes magazine’s list of the richest Russians until 2008, when the company suffered significant financial losses.
The circumstances surrounding the real estate tycoon’s death are strikingly similar to those of Anatoly Gershchenko, the former head of the Moscow Aviation Institute, who, according to reports in Russia, fell down a flight of stairs at the institute’s headquarters in the Russian capital in September, as reported in ‘Bechadari Haredim’.
Anatoly Gershchenko, former head of the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) slipped and fell this morning down a flight of stairs at the headquarters in the Russian capital. “On September 21, 2022, Anatoly Nikolaevich Gershchenko, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, Advisor to the Rector of the Moscow Aviation Institute, died as a result of an accident,” the spokesperson of the Russian Communications Company said.
Zelenov’s death is added to the long and mysterious list of Russian oligarchs who have died under mysterious circumstances since the start of the war in Ukraine. Dimitri is the latest in a long line of senior executives from Russia’s energy, technology and finance sectors linked to the Kremlin who have died under suspicious circumstances in recent months.