Russian fossil fuel giant Lukoil on Tuesday announced “with deep regret the sudden passing of” company chairman Vladimir Ivanovich Nekrasov, adding that “according to the preliminary conclusion of doctors, death occurred as a result of acute heart failure,” raising the intriguing possibility that maybe the 66 year-old Nekrasov did in fact die of heart failure under largely normal circumstances given his age and with it the likelihood of underlying health conditions.
Like we definitely can’t rule out that a guy who apparently worked in the industry since he was a teenager – per Lukoil’s statement – and as such likely spent a good portion of his career inhaling all sorts of awful shit while toiling in a Soviet refinery before landing a desk job wouldn’t be in great shape at 66. It’s also completely within the realm of imagination that Nekrasov liked to kick back and enjoy a little vodka after a hard day’s work that was only made tolerable by being constantly drunk on vodka. Heart failure is an unfortunately realistic outcome for such a lifestyle.
Now of course it’s reasonable to speculate that maybe the heart failure was precipitated by some external vector like ricin or polonium or novichuk. Or that it wasn’t heart failure at all since Nekrasov had only been at the top job since the last guy fell out of a hospital window which some bonehead at Lukoil mistakenly said was “a severe illness.” We get it. We’re just saying that Nekrasov might’ve just simply died on his own without any help. It’s not that wacky or paranoid to raise that possibility.