The apparent suicide of a Ukrainian oil and gas oligarch earlier this week in his $25 million London mansion is under investigation, and his friends believe his death is somehow connected to Russia’s invasion of his homeland.
Mikhail Watford, 66, was found hanged in his garage by his gardener in his luxurious Surrey home Monday. The death was not revealed for several days, and when police divulged it, they deemed it “unexplained, but not suspicious.” Still, Watford’s horrified friends are giving voice to grim speculation he may have acted because he believed he was on a hit list drawn up in Moscow.
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“I find it hard to believe that Misha would have taken his own life,” an unnamed neighbor told the Sun. “It doesn’t add up.”
The woman said Watford had been good friends with Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky, who was found hanged at his nearby home in 2013, and claimed Watford had confided in her that he feared he was on Vladimir Putin’s hit list.
“His state of mind might have been affected by the situation in the Ukraine,” another family friend told the outlet. “The timing of his death and the invasion of Ukraine was surely not coincidental.”
“His death raises questions,” another associate told the Sun. “After all the other suspicious deaths of Russian nationals and associates in the U.K., it is only natural there will be speculation about his death.”
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Watford, who was born Mikhail Tolstosheya in Ukraine, changed his last name when he moved to the U.K. in 2015 after making his fortune in oil and gas. His lavish estate reportedly features three 18-hole golf courses and was the site where former Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet was held before his extradition back to Chile on human rights abuse charges related to kidnapping and torture during his 16-year rule.
