Japanese Executive Found Dead in Moscow Hotel

A Japanese CEO has been found dead in a Moscow hotel room, the latest in a series of executive deaths in Russia.

Acquaintances of Jun Aoki, chairman of Yamaha Music in Russia, had notified police after not hearing from him for several days, according to Baza, a Russian-language Telegram channel with links to the country's security services.

Aoki's body was discovered Tuesday at the five-star Radisson Collection Hotel Moscow, formerly known as the Hotel Ukraina, on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, a major avenue in the Russian capital.

The preliminary cause of death has been listed as acute heart failure, according to Baza. He was 55 years old.

Aoki had been chairman of Yamaha's Russia operations for at least four years, according to a Yamaha internal note from March 2020. He was also a member of the Moscow Conservatory's Board of Trustees.

Newsweek has not seen any information suggesting that foul play was involved in Aoki's death. Radisson Hotels and Moscow's State Conservatory did not immediately respond to Newsweek's emails for comment.

Aoki joins a growing list of top executives who suddenly turned up dead in and around the Russian capital. Four of these deaths were high-ranking officials of Russia's second-largest oil producer, Lukoil, which called for a quick end to the war in Ukraine shortly after President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion in 2022. Vitaly Robertus, the energy giant's vice president, was found dead in what appeared to be a suicide.

Multiple Russian Telegram channels, including Baza as well as the independent Russian journalism project Astra, reported that Robertus had been found "hanged" in his Moscow office.

Last October, Vladimir Nekrasov, Lukoil's chairman, died. Acute heart failure was also given as the cause of death.

In September 2022, Lukoil Chairman Ravil Maganov reportedly fell to his death from a hospital window, though the oil company said he had "passed away following a severe illness."

Former top Lukoil manager Alexander Subbotin was discovered dead in the home of a shaman in May 2022 in Mytishchi, about 12 miles northeast of Moscow," the state-owned news agency Tass reported at the time.

The spate of deaths goes beyond oil executives. Vladislav Avayev, former vice president of the private Russian bank Gazprombank, was found dead along with his daughter and wife in April 2022.

The deaths of critics of the Putin government have garnered the most attention. The mysterious death of 47-year-old opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a Siberian penal colony in February led many activists and Western political leaders, including President Joe Biden, to say Putin was responsible.