Authorities in both Russia and Spain are investigating the deaths — within a day of each other — of two Russian business magnates and some of their immediate family members..The Russian businessmen were found dead along with each of their wives and children..Sergey Protosenya, 55, his wife and his daughter were discovered late afternoon on Tuesday at their home in the seaside resort of Lloret de Mar in Spain’s Catalonia region..Protosenya, who was a natural gas giant, was hanged and his wife and daughter had been stabbed to death, according to Spanish media. He was found with a bloodstained knife and an axe at his side, Spanish TV channel Telecinco reported..Investigators are reported to be trying to determine whether the incident was a domestic murder-suicide or an assassination. Their bodies were discovered just one day after another Russian gas boss was found alongside his family in Moscow under similarly strange circumstances..Protosenya did not leave a suicide note and there were no bloodstains on his body, El Punta Vui reported, without citing sources..The alarm was raised by the couple’s eldest son — who lives in France — when he was unable to contact them..Newsweek spoke with a Novatek spokeswoman on Thursday, the gas giant emailed a statement praising Protosenya as a “wonderful family man.”.Protosenya had a personal fortune in excess of $433 million, according to Telecinco..His death followed the discovery of the demise of Vladislav Avayev, former vice-president of Gazprombank. He had sustained a fatal gunshot head wound in his Moscow apartment on Monday according to Russia’s Tass news agency..The Moscow investigations department did not name the victims in its public statement about the case, but Tass said an unnamed source had confirmed their identities..The bodies were discovered by Avayev’s 26-year-old daughter, Anastasia, after she was unable to get in touch with them, police spokeswoman Yulia Ivanova told Tass..The 14th-floor apartment door was reported to have been locked from the inside. Officials are treating the deaths as a murder-suicide case. They believe Avayev’s wife and daughter were shot before he was. They have not yet ruled out foul play..Neither of the dead Russian businessmen were on an international sanctions list in the Ukraine-Russia conflict..Last month, Ukranian-born oligarch Mikhail Watford, 66, who made his fortune in oil and gas, was found dead in his mansion in Surrey, England..Earlier this year two other Russian businessmen, Alexander Tyulakov and Leonid Shulman, also died in suspicious circumstances..Reports emerged Friday that seven people had perished after a huge fire broke out at a key Russian defence research institute in Tver, northwest of Moscow. It is not yet known whether the fire was an accident or arson..The fire broke out in an administrative building of the aerospace defence forces’ central research institute. It quickly overwhelmed the building’s upper three floors..Occupants were forced to jump from windows to escape the fire that was causing the building’s roof to collapse..The incident was followed hours later by unconfirmed reports of another fire at one of Russia’s largest chemical plants..Images on social media purported to show a large fire at the Dmitrievsky chemical plant in Kinsehma about 400kms northeast of Moscow..The images showed smoke billowing from the plant, which describes itself on its website as the largest producer of butyl acetate and industrial solvents in Russia and eastern Europe..There was no official cause given for either of the fires..Amanda Brown is a reporter with the Western Standard.,.abrown@westernstandard.news.,.Twitter: @WS_JournoAmanda
