Maybe many Russian military and energy industry leaders have inner ear problems that make them unsteady.  Or maybe they should just stop going near windows and stairs.  Regardless, those cautions aren’t going to help 72-year-old Anatoly Gerashchenko, who reportedly died after falling down “several flights of stairs.”

“Gerashchenko fell from a great height, [falling down] several flights of stairs,” the Russian news site Izvestia, owned by Russian fossil fuel giant Gazprom, reported.  “Medics arrived at the scene of the incident and pronounced him dead.”  Gerashchenko was an advisor to the rector, or director, of the Moscow Aviation Institute and had been a key Kremlin military advisor.

Gerashchenko’s death is the latest in a string of–shall we say–unusual deaths in recent months for people involved in Russia’s military industrial complex or political operations.  Last week, Ivan Pechorin, the Aviation Director for Russia’s Far East and Arctic Development Corporation (FEADC), fell off a boat, only to have his body floating found 100 miles away two days later.

In February, the 43-year-old CEO of FEADC, Igor Nosov, died suddenly of a reported stroke.  In August, Lukoil CEO Ravil Maganov died after falling out a hospital window in Moscow.  Another Lukoil executive, Alexander Subbotin, dropped dead of a heart attack suddenly in Moscow.  So far in 2022, at least nine energy or military industry executives have died unexpectedly or in unusual circumstances.