Did Kidnappers Make LUKOIL Top Manager a Drug Addict?

The kidnapping of LUKOIL top manager Sergey Kukura is still a great mystery. There are a lot of versions to explain the reasons of such a strange kidnapping, new versions keep coming up almost every day.

Currently, there are two top versions. The newspaper Izvestia is sure that the first vice president of the Russian petroleum company was kidnapped by Russian special services. As the newspaper believes, they wanted to get some discrediting material against LUKOIL President Vagit Alekperov.

The newspaper Gazeta believes that this was the way one of the fired regional top managers of the company tried to show pressure on the company’s administration. Someone wanted LUKOIL to stop a legal persecution and share the loot too. The loot was not just three bags of money, it was several tankers and a good share in the petroleum business.

Utro.Ru journalists came to conclusion that Sergey Kukura became a drug addict during those 13 days of his disappearance. The majority of Russian media outlets say that the criminals made Kukura heroine injections. Newspapers write that heroine is cheaper than other “special drugs,” and that it was very easy to get it. Indeed, all reports about Kukura’s mysterious return mention that he was feeling bad. Even police officers stated that Sergey Kukura’s state of health was definitely inadequate. They even called a medical expert for him.

Heroine is one of the strongest drugs. It is produced synthetically from morphine. Heroine is very poisonous, it is much stronger than morphine. It leads to drug addiction a lot faster, than other drugs. Three or five doses are enough to make a human being totally dependant on heroine. It is completely impossible to refuse from heroine injections in a month time. Despite the deceleration of living functions, a heroine-addicted person’s mind is usually clear. However, this person is totally dependant on those people, who will give him a dose. Utro.Ru came to conclusion that such kind of dependence could be the major goal of the kidnapping.

PRAVDA.Ru asked LUKOIL press secretary Dmitry Dolgov to comment on the situation. Mr.Dolgov announced that Sergey Kukura was definitely kidnapped with an intention to get a ransom. LUKOIL press secretary added that all other versions were the fruit of journalists’ imagination. It is worth mentioning here that LUKOIL is a co-owner of the newspaper Izvestia, which actually accused the Russian special services of Kukura’s kidnapping. In light of such relations between the oil company and the newspaper, it seems that the publication was meant to mislead the public opinion.

Then Mr. Dolgov told us, that Sergey Kukura’s state of health was just fine, “I saw him in the morning. He was joking, smiling, walking his dog.” It’s good to know. Yet, it is not clear, why the police can no get the information that they need from Kukura. They just keep saying that he is not feeling good.

We asked Dmitry Dolgov, when it is possible for Sergey Kukura to start working on his position again. Dolgov answered that “it was just a question of several days.” It could be understood from his words that LUKOIL was not going to give Sergey Kukura a vacation. As Dmitry Dolgov said, “He can take a vacation, if he wants to.”

Dmitry Dolgov was at a loss, when we asked him, who was fulfilling Sergey Kukura’s duties, when he was away from work. “It was another vice president, but I am not telling you, who in particular” said LUKOIL press secretary. He explained that it was dangerous to make any information public in Russia: “We are a serious company. We want to work on foreign markets. But they have their own requirements there. It particularly touches upon the disclosure of information. Criminals surf the Internet all the time.”

Dmitry Slobodanuk
PRAVDA.Ru