The Russian connectionUkrainian businessman with links to Trump, Russia dies in mysterious circumstances

Alex Oronov, 69, a Ukranian-born millionaire businessman with ties to both Donald Trump and the Russian business elite, has died on 2 March in unexplained circumstances.

Oronov, a naturalized American citizen, ran a large agricultural business in his native Ukraine.

Oronov also had family ties to Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer: Cohen’s brother, Bryan, was Oronov’s partner in an ethanol business in Ukraine.

The Independent reports that Oronov had set up a secret meeting in January 2017 in which Michael Cohen, Felix Sater — an American-Russian long-time business associate of Trump with ties to the Russian mafia – and Andrey Artemenko, the leader of the Solidarity of Right Forces in the Ukrainian parliament –participated.

Artemenko, 47, made millions as an arms dealer, specializing in providing arms – and Ukrainian and Russian mercenaries – to conflict hot-spots around the world. He entered local politics in his hometown of Kyiv in 1998, and came to national prominence as the campaign manager of Yulia Tymoshenko in the 2004 election (Tymoshenko served as prime minister from 24 January to 8 September 2005, and again from 18 December 2007 to 4 March 2010).

In 2014 Artemenko – who describes himself as a “neoconservative” — put together a coalition of small right-leaning parties, calling it the Solidarity of Right Forces. The pro-business party supports free-market economics, but unlike other rightist parties in Ukraine, Solidarity advocates close relationship with Russia, and opposes Ukraine’s joining either the EU or NATO.

Oronov, Sater, Cohen, and Artemenko met in January in an effort to hatch a peace plan for Ukraine. The peace plan called for holding a referendum in Crimea about the peninsula’s future – and since it was clear that the Russian majority in Crimea would vote to join Russia, the plan called for Russia to lease Crimea from Ukraine for fifty years.

The plan was presented to Michael Flynn, the national security adviser-designate, before he assumed office on 20 January.

Oronov’s death is the latest in a series of mysterious deaths which have visited senior Russian diplomats in the past three months:

— Vitaly Churkin, 64, Russia’s permanent ambassador to the UN, died last month in New York after suddenly becoming ill on his way to work the day before his 65th birthday. It was reported he had suffered a heart attack, but an autopsy proved inconclusive.

— Andrei Malanin, 55, the Russian consul in Athens, was found dead in January on the floor of his apartment in Greece. Greek police said there was no evidence of a break-in and he was believed to have died of natural causes.

— Alexander Kadakin, 67, Russia’s ambassador to India, was reported to have died of heart failure in January after a “brief illness.”

— Sergei Krivov, 63, a senior Russian diplomat, was found on 8 November, U.S. Election Day, unconscious on the grounds outside his office at the Russian consulate in New York. He suffered severe – and unexplained — head injuries. Russian sources initially said he had fallen to his death following a heart attack, but a report from medical examiners was inconclusive.

— Andrei Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, was killed on 19 December in Ankara by a policeman at a photography exhibition.

— Peter Polshikov, a senior officials at the Russian foreign ministry, was shot dead in his Moscow apartment on the same day (19 December).

— Oleg Erovinkin, the former chief of the KGB, who is said to have provided former British MI6 operative Christopher Steele with material for a dossier on Donald Trump, was found dead in the back of his car on 26 December. Russian officials claimed he had died of a heart attack.