Ivan Sesyn, the son of the CEO of the Russian oil giant “Rosneft” Igor Sesyn, died suddenly on February 5 at the age of only 35, but learned of his death only two weeks later, according to the American publication Newsweek. quoted by News.ro.

Ivan Secin also worked for Rosneft since March 2014 and was even awarded by the Kremlin when he was only 26 years old for outstanding services to his homeland. Together with his father – one of Putin’s closest associates – Ivan was also on the list of persons who fell under Western sanctions due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Surprisingly, nothing was known about Ivan Sechin’s death until Leonid Nevzlin – another Russian oligarch living in exile and a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin – drew attention to a notarial entry in the State Register of Inheritance. The message in the registry is registered in the name of Secin Ivan Igorovich, born in 1989, who lived in a house previously called “a house for associates of President Putin”, independent Russian news agencies report.

The former head of the oil giant Yukos Nevzlin wrote on Facebook: “Today, when I was reminiscing with friends and partners about why the Kremlin’s war against Yukos started, today I learned that Ihor Sesyn just lost his son. The same one who fabricated all the blatant and bloody cases against us,” Nevzlin wrote, sharing a screenshot of the notarized entry in the register and calling it a “strange coincidence.”

“It’s probably hard to believe, but my heart goes out to the father who lost his child. I sympathize with the mother of Alexei Navalny, just as I sympathized in recent years with the mother of Boris Nemtsov, whom he left this month,” added Nevzlin. . “My condolences to Sechin’s family, who are forced to hide their pain,” the Russian billionaire wrote.

Ivan Setsyn would have died of a blood clot, like Navalny

Secin’s death was also reported by the Cheka-OGPU online station, which allegedly has sources in the Russian security forces. Citing an anonymous source, it is reported that around 4:30 a.m. on February 5, Ivan Sesyn “said that he felt sick and felt like he was suffocating.”

“The man fell on the bed and lost consciousness. Those around him put Ivan on the floor and tried to give him first aid,” the report says, adding that the “ambulance” arrived only two hours later without finding the address. “When the ambulance arrived at the scene, the doctors could only confirm Ivan’s death,” the VCHK-OGPU reported.

The quoted source later clarified that the death was due to a “thrombus that broke off.” The same reason was given for the death of the Russian opposition leader Oleksiy Navalny four days ago in prison.

The Cheka-OGPU stated that Ivan Setsyn was buried “on the third day after his death.”

The head of “Rosneft” forbade any investigations

His father, 63-year-old Ihor Setsyn, CEO of Rosneft, “allegedly forbade employees of the Investigative Committee, the FSB and other law enforcement agencies to deal with issues related to Ivan’s death,” the source said. Instead, he sent people from Rosneft’s security service, made up of “former employees of the FSB and the Investigative Committee, personally loyal to Secin” to the house where his son died.

The Kremlin did not comment on all this information.

Olga Lautman, a freelance senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and a senior fellow at the Institute for European Integrity, said the story was “very strange,” given that “the death of the son of one of the most powerful people in Russia was covered up for 2 weeks.”

“It is very interesting that Russia is keeping his death a secret when his father is one of Putin’s closest associates. Very strange,” Lautman said in a post on X. She added, “The reason I’m so obsessed with this is because his father, Igor Sechin, is one of the most powerful people in the country, one of the closest and the oldest trusted allies of Putin and, of course, the KGB.”

Who is Ihor Sesyn?

Igor Secin is also, like Putin, a former KGB spy who became an oil tycoon. He has known Putin for decades and worked with him at the St. Petersburg City Hall. He was once called Putin’s de facto deputy and, while at Rosneft, led measures to combat sanctions.

According to The Daily Mail, his son was very secretive and used the pseudonym Yevhen Anatolyovich Panin, probably to hide his wealth or for security reasons. Virtually all photos of Ivan Setsyn were deleted, only one remained, in which he was allegedly himself. It was believed that he is healthy, he died in his mansion in the elite village of Europe-1 Krasnohorsk. Bloomberg previously called this address “a home for associates of President Putin.”

Igor Sechin, head of Rosneft (Photo: Oleksiy Druzhinin / Sputnik / Profimedia)

Ivan Setsyn’s award, which was criticized by Navalny

When Putin awarded Ivan Sechin with the Order of Service to the Fatherland at the age of just 26, Navalny called it “bullying”, pointing to the nepotism of dictator Putin’s regime. “What can be useful for a 25-year-old person who has been working in his father’s business since March 2014 (less than a year) to make it a long-term and worthy service?” Navalny asked.

Ivan worked as a director in offshore projects and accompanied his father on foreign trips. A graduate of Moscow State University, he previously worked as an analyst at Gazprombank, a Kremlin arm, before joining his father at Rosneft.

A series of suspicious deaths in the Russian elite

His case is the latest mysterious death in the Russian energy sector since the invasion of Ukraine. Since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, there have been many unexplained deaths—dozens—of prominent Russians, but most of them have been in the energy sector.

The death comes amid speculation that the sons and daughters of Putin’s aging inner circle are poised to seize new political and business power in a major reshuffle after the autocrat wins next month’s presidential election.

In December 2022, Pavel Antov, a member of Putin’s United Russia party and a wealthy food industry oligarch who once criticized Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, was found dead after falling from a window in India.

Ravil Maganov, the head of Russian oil giant Lukoil, the country’s second-largest oil producer, was found dead on September 1, 2022, after falling from a hospital window in Moscow. The circumstances of the 67-year-old man’s fall remain unclear. Worked at Lukoil since 1993.