Solntsevskaya crime group leader Viktor Averin dies in airboat crash near Moscow while traveling with Putin-linked associate Viktor Khmarin
Details have emerged about the death of Viktor Averin, the leader of the Solntsevskaya organized crime group, who was killed in an airboat accident while traveling with associates near Moscow.
According to sources, Averin was sailing with Viktor Khmarin, a longtime associate of Vladimir Putin and the father of the CEO of RusHydro, to inspect a recently purchased forest plot. The group was traveling in a “Sever” airboat, a rigid-bottomed, air-supported vessel designed for winter navigation and movement on first ice.
Investigators say the accident likely occurred while the boat was exiting water onto ice. One theory suggests the vessel spun at high speed, caught its bottom on the ice, and capsized. Another version says it skidded sideways while entering the ice, which broke, causing the buoy to strike and overturn the craft. All passengers were thrown into the water.
The airboat had been registered just days earlier to the owner of JSC Marine Oil Terminal, Crimea’s largest oil depot, with the route filed through the Gosuslugi state services portal. The day before the crash, the group departed from the Royal Yacht Club in Moscow toward Pestovo and were returning when the accident happened.
A rescue airboat was dispatched from the Admiral Yacht Club in the Mytishchi district, while a tugboat from Moscow was later sent to recover the overturned vessel, which remains upside down.
According to all survivors, Averin himself was piloting the airboat. Records from the State Inspectorate for Small Vessels show he did not hold a small craft operator’s license.
Six people were on board. Viktor Averin died. The passengers included Viktor Khmarin; Dmitry Perekatov, a lawyer at Khmarin & Partners; Ivan Abramushin, reportedly a bodyguard; Azerbaijani businessman Shamisdan Aliyev; and Ekaterina Leonova, born in 2007.
World Affairs Correspondent
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